Greenland is visible from space. Arctic Sea ice is not shown.

History shows that empires acquire territories in various ways. Dynasties link arms through marriage, as the Habsburgs were famous for doing. Territories are pinched by means of arms or stolen through sham contracts and undertakings. They might also be purchased.

The United States made much of the vast property sale in acquiring an empire. The Louisiana purchase of 1803 for a mere $15 million was daring, opportunistic and extra-legal. It was also initiated by a US president who had romantically insisted that the fledgling republic confine itself to the agricultural good deeds of a model yeomanry. But Thomas Jefferson could be cunningly devilish, and France, then under the firm rule of Napoleon Bonaparte, worried him. “There is on the globe one single spot, the possessor of which is our natural and habitual enemy. It is New Orleans.”

Boney, his interests more focused on Europe, was open to giving up the land for a fee. The natives,........

© CounterPunch