":::People in Norway were always considered as Norwegians by themselves and by other people in Denmark–Norway (eg. by the Danes), although most people in former times primarily identified with their local area and not so much with more abstract concepts like ""Danes"" or ""Norwegians"" (and Norway is a large country with considerable differences between eg Østfold and Nordland). Norway, a kingdom with its own institutions in most areas, was governed/administered mostly by Norwegians who considered themselves as such and who were usually born in Norway, and who usually had a great deal of affection for Denmark and loyalty to the common Dano-Norwegian state, and Denmark was not at all considered an oppressive power, on the contrary. Most of the Norwegian upper class, although clearly identifying as Norwegian, bitterly resented the dissolution of the Dano-Norwegian union. Nationalism was a phenomenon that only emerged in the last years of the Dano-Norwegian union, and even then usually only by small upper class segments. The farmers, i.e. the vast majority, were more conserned with whether they were treated fairly at the local level in those times. In general the Norwegian farmer class was better off (both economically and in terms of freedom) than the Danish majority population (there was no stavsbånd in Norway, among other things, and the ownership structure of the land was different, with fewer large estates and a higher proportion of the land owned by the state (which leased it to farmers on reasonable and relaxed terms) and smaller farmers).    

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