[2][3][7] The majority of Sámi immigrants originated from Norway, Sweden, or Finland, though a small number came from the Kola Peninsula in Russia.

[2][8] Initially, Sámi populations were drawn to the United States by employment opportunities in mining and logging industries.

Sámi immigrants are first recorded to have arrived in the United States in the 1860s, when a number were recruited to work in the Keweenaw Peninsula copper mines.

In the United States, however, most Americans were either unaware of the existence of Sámi as a distinct ethnicity or could not racially distinguish them from other Nordic immigrants.

In order to avoid discrimination and conform to Anglo-American cultural norms, very few first-generation immigrants were open about their ethnicity.

[2] Sámi immigrants, along with ethnic Finns, began founding their own congregations in the United States as early as the 1870s after an established Norwegian pastor denied a number of Laestadians the eucharist.

[12] In the mid 19th century, the United States government began efforts to teach reindeer husbandry to Alaska Natives as their traditional sources of sustenance through seal, walrus, and whale hunting had become insufficient due to overfishing.

As the Commissioner of Education, Jackson also introduced policies which effectively sought to re-educate the Alaska native population and repress cultural differences.

[3] At the time, many Sámi herders in Sápmi had lost their traditional livelihoods, as they had been gradually pushed out of lands used for nomadic pastoralism into more defined regions with inflexible borders.

By the time the arrived in Seattle, however, the U.S. government had decided that the situation in Alaska was not dire enough to warrant immediate action, and had reallocated all of its ships to fighting in the Spanish–American War.

Many of those who remained in North America stayed in Alaska as miners, while others resettled in Washington and the Midwest, where large Scandinavian populations existed.

It effectively prohibited the ownership of reindeer herds in Alaska by non-Native Americans and was intended to provide for Alaskan natives and to allow them to establish a self-sustaining industry.

[16] Authority to promulgate rules regarding the ownership and maintenance of reindeer herds was delegated to the Bureau of Indian Affairs via the Secretary of the Interior, who banned most transactions to non-natives.

[18] While many became scattered across North America and forced to integrate, a significant number settled on the Kitsap peninsula in Washington, where a community of Norwegian immigrants already existed.