2 - Greenland and Discourses of Possession

Summary

The chapter examines the rhetoric of imperialism in the period leading up to the Danish recolonisation of Greenland in 1721 (and its immediate aftermath). English privateer Martin Frobisher’s expeditions in the late sixteenth century first gave impetus to the search for riches in the Arctic. The slew of texts published in the wake of Frobisher’s expeditions provided the nation with the image of courageous Englishmen establishing claims to lands in the North Atlantic. The chapter analyses English writings that allude to Greenland in ways that constitute claims to land. However, these claims were not uncontested. The Danish crown sent out expeditions in the early seventeenth century, which were also documented in the medium of print. It is the aim to show how Danish endeavours can be seen partly as a response to English activity. A significant part of the chapter is therefore an inquiry into how Danish writers attempted to ascertain Greenland as a land belonging to the Dano-Norwegian crown.