Ludvig mastered French, German, and English and had some knowledge in Portuguese and Spanish. In the letters to his brother, Ludvig mentions names such as Émile Zola and Ernest Renan among others. One of Ludvig and Axel’s sisters, Ellen Chatarina Moberg (1874-1955), became a politician and a pioneer in developing nursery schools and co-founded with her sister Maria Elisabeth (1877-1948) the Fröbelinstitutet in Norrköping, an institute educating kindergarten teachers. I have not been able to trace his daughters. All three sons would become professors in different disciplines.
Adam Hochschild has shown that these anti-slavery campaigns were in fact not as glorious as one might think.3Īxel had two daughters and three sons. At the time, white state officials launched campaigns against the slave traders, and it might be such campaigns that Ludvig refers to when he talks about “warfare”. What Ludvig probably mentions here is the brutal Arabic slave trade, organized by the notorious Zanzibar-based Arabic slave-raider Hamed bin Muhammed el Murjebi, known as Tippu Tip, a man who King Leopold at first negotiated with. I have however spotted some workers that skillfully write Arabic and I will try to find something for you among them.2
I might find something for you among the workers from Senegal who have been in contact with Arabs and have their education from them, but I have so far not seen much except some smaller amulets. The caravans that come down here have changed people many times and negroes from the parts where contacts with the Arabs are intense do not come down here. It is difficult to get hold of such objects here, because contacts with the Arabs are far away and only due to “warfare,” but those taking part in the campaigns might find some objects for you. You write that you would like some Arabic objects. In a letter to Ludvig, Axel asks for some Arabic objects. Between 19, he was head of Lund University. He would later become a professor in Semitic languages and a translator of Arabic literature. In the mid-1890s, Ludvig’s brother Axel was a student at Lund University. As far as I understand it, the majority of those that served in Congo, be they Swedes or others, lacked higher education.1 I have not yet been able to read them all in more detail, but I believe that they are special because they were written by a highly educated person. The addressees being his younger brother and his mother, the letters differ in tone and content. Sixteen of the letters are to Sara and the rest to Axel and were written between 18. A year or so ago I came across 26 letters sent from the Congo Free State by Ludvig Moberg (1866-1935) to his mother Sara (1843-1927) and his brother Axel (1872-1956).
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