Greenland’s Colonial History |
Hans Egede was born in the city of Harstad, 150 miles north of the Arctic Circle in Norway, to a Danish priest and a Norwegian mother from a merchant family. Egede established the Bergen Greenland Company with merchants from the Norwegian shipping and commercial city of Bergen, opening new contact with Greenland, which had been broken for more than 300 years. From 1721, the company was given broad power over Greenland, which at that time was thought to be a peninsula.
The capital, Godt-Haab (Good Hope), now Nuuk, was originally the main fort of the colony founded by Egede. He and his wife Gertrud, with four children and forty other colonists, settled in Greenland. Part of the missionary work included translation of major parts of the Bible so that the Inuit could understand the new religion. In addition, commercial activities were introduced. Many colonists returned home after some time, but new ones replaced them.
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With the arrival of missionaries, colonists and sailors to the isolated island, new diseases were also brought, to which the local population had no natural immunity. Many Inuit died from epidemics, especially smallpox, which ravaged many........