#533 Why is Greenland part of Denmark?

Why is Greenland part of Denmark? Greenland was a colony of Denmark, but it didn’t officially become a part of Denmark until 1953. It is technically defined as a district of Denmark.

The reason why Greenland is a part of Denmark goes back to before Denmark was actually a country. People have lived in Greenland since about 2,500 BC. People first migrated across the Bering Strait about 30,000 years ago. It may have taken them thousands of years to spread across the whole of Canada and then on into Greenland. That sounds strange, but they were living during an ice age and they didn’t have much need to travel too far. Populations were not big enough to cause much competition for food and generations would live in the same place. These were the ancestors of the Inuit that live there today. The largest group of Inuit living there today are called the Kalaallit and they call their country Kalaallit Nunaat, which means “Land of the Kalaallit”.

The course of Greenland changed significantly when Norse settlers arrived there in 989. The Norse people lived in the area of Scandinavia, where Norway, Sweden, Finland, and Denmark are today. They were mostly concentrated in the area that has become Norway. The people who lived in the Scandinavian region become known as sailors, but they were more commonly known as Vikings. For various reasons, they spread out from their home countries and started to settle in different places. Vikings from Norway and Vikings from Denmark settled in different places. The Danish Vikings settled all across the north of Britain, taking the north half of the country, which became known as the Danelaw. The Norse Vikings sailed farther north. They took the north of Scotland and all the islands above it. In 874 AD they stumbled upon Iceland and settled there.

A little over 100 years later, Norse sailors struck out again. A Norwegian called Erik the Red discovered Greenland in 982. The Norwegian sagas say that Erik the Red’s father was exiled to Iceland because he had killed people in Norway. In 982, Erik the Red was also exiled because he had also killed people, this time in Iceland. He set sail and landed in Greenland. He liked what he saw and sailed back to Iceland to recruit more people to make a settlement. The story goes that he called the new land “Green land” to drum up more interest. He sailed back with his entourage and started the first Norse settlement in North America. By the year 1000, there were about 3,000 Vikings living in 400 farms. They lived in the area for about 500 years and they traded extensively with Iceland, then they all just disappeared. Nobody knows why, but it could have been connected to a little ice age that occurred at the time.

So, why is Greenland a part of Denmark if it was settled by Norwegians that then disappeared? In 1397, the three countries of Denmark, Norway, and Sweden had united as the Kalmar Union. Sweden managed to get out of it, but Norway didn’t have the power to stand up to Denmark and the Dano-Norwegian unity lasted until 1814. In the 16^th century, Portugal began to show interest in Greenland while searching for the northwest passage. Denmark decided that Greenland was Danish-Norwegian because of the Norse settlements that were there and he sent expeditions out to make contact. They discovered that all of the Norwegian settlements had vanished. They spent a couple of hundred years tentatively investigating and then founded a colony on the southwest coast in 1721. Denmark and Norway forced Greenland to trade exclusively with them, closing it to other countries.

Greenland was technically a colony of Norway, which was controlled by Denmark. In 1814, the union between Denmark and Norway was dissolved. Norway came off worse and Denmark took possession of all of Norway’s colonies, Greenland, Iceland and the Faroe Islands being the largest of them. However, Greenland was still not a part of Denmark, it was only a colony.

In 1940, Denmark was invaded by Nazi Germany and Germany also tried to invade Greenland. The USA guaranteed Greenland’s security and Greenland became an independent entity. That didn’t last long. After the Second World War ended, Denmark sought to rekindle its control over Greenland. The United States actually offered to buy Greenland for one hundred million dollars, but Denmark refused and in 1953, Denmark amended its constitution to make Greenland a county of the Kingdom of Denmark. They gave every person in Greenland Danish citizenship and allowed Greenland to have two members in the Danish parliament. Apart from the great distance and the fact that they spoke a different language, Greenland was just another Danish county. Denmark also keep the Faroe islands, but they lost Iceland. And this is what I learned today.

Photo by Lars Bugge Aarset: https://www.pexels.com/photo/scenic-view-of-greenland-village-13830356/

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