Nuuk District

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Nuup communia
Nuuk District
location
Symbols
coat of arms
coat of arms
Basic data
Country Greenland
Commune Kommuneqarfik Sermersooq
Seat Nuuk
surface 105,000 km²
Residents 18,221 (January 1, 2019)
density 0.2 inhabitants per km²

Nuuk has been a district in western Greenland since 2009 .

location

Nuuk District is located in central West Greenland. It is bordered by the Maniitsoq district in the north and the Paamiut district in the south .

history

Before the colonial era

In the Middle Ages, the Vestribyggð was in what is now the district area, where the Grænlendingar lived in around 90 farms. The main area of ​​the settlement was in the Nuup Kangerlua fjord complex . The archaeological remains of Vestribyggð were first discovered by Hans Egede and examined and described by Egill Þórhallsson in 1776 .

In 1585 the English navigator John Davis visited the area. He drove into a fjord he named Gilbert's Sound in honor of Humphrey Gilbert and his family . There he traded with the Inuit , which he described in detail in his travel report. The following year he visited the area again. During this trip the first report about the clothing and way of life of the Greenland Inuit was written. He also wrote down 40 words from the Greenlandic language . However, he was also attacked by the Greenlanders, so he kidnapped one on his ship as a punishment. He also discovered an apparently Christian grave with a cross on a group of islands.

In June 1605 Godske Lindenow anchored in the area of Qeqertarsuatsiaat or north of it. In 1624 the same position was given by the Dutchman Marten Arendsz. visited.

On May 27, 1612, James Hall anchored in the small fjord Kangerluluk (Faltings Havn) east of Kangeq , which he called the Harbor of Hope . He named other fjords, islands and mountains in the area. Hall also came into contact with the Greenlanders, but they killed a crew member with an arrow shot.

On July 14, 1652 David Danell drove a tributary of the Nuup Kangerlua, which had been named by Hall Ball River (after the merchant Richard Ball ). In addition, he had over 100 Greenlanders from Atammik and the Pisuffik archipelago come on his ship to trade with them. The following year he visited the area again and anchored in Kangeq. Probably in Qoornoq he kidnapped the Greenlander Job, his daughter Kabelau and the two women Gunneling and Sigoko. The four were drawn and the pictures exhibited in the Bergen University Museum, where the Greenlanders died. When Hans Egede came to Greenland in 1721, the oldest residents were able to tell him about the kidnapping by Danell.

In the 17th century the district was passed by Dutch whalers who were on their way to their hunting grounds in Disko Bay , but sometimes replenished their supplies here too.

18th century

The merchant Hans Mathias had a ship sail from Bergen to Greenland in 1708 to investigate the country and explore trade opportunities for Denmark-Norway , after the Dutch had long been active there. The Norwegian Niels Rasch, a brother of Gertrud Rask and Hans Egede's wife, was also the helmsman on board the ship . He told him about the trip which inspired Hans Egede to proselytize the pagan Greenlanders. In 1711 he asked King Frederick IV for permission to do so, but it was not until 1719 that the king, after several unsuccessful attempts, approved the establishment of a trading company together with a mission station.

On July 3, 1721, Hans Egede reached today's district area with the ship Haabet and the Galiot Anna Christina , where the Haabets Ø colony was established near Kangeq . The Danes traded with the Greenlanders, but there was little success as the Dutch usually had the better barter products. Hans Egede's missionary work was difficult at first, mainly because he had to learn the Greenlandic language first. The first Greenlander was not baptized until 1725. In the mid-1720s the supply of the colonists became critical due to the lack of sails from Europe.

In April and May 1728 the first European expedition was carried out on the Ameralik , during which Governor Claus Paarss attempted to cross the inland ice to get to East Greenland.

On July 2, 1728, the colony was moved to Nuuk and renamed Godthaab . With the death of King Friedrich IV, his son Christian VI came. to power who decided to give up Greenland and bring all colonists home. However, Hans Egede managed to persuade the dispatched ship's crew to leave him with ten men in Greenland. Hans Egede now evangelized the Greenlanders with his son Niels , who also managed the trade.

In the spring of 1731, Nikolaus Ludwig von Zinzendorf succeeded in persuading the king to do missionary work in Greenland and interest in the colony was rekindled. On April 4, 1733, the king again promised financial support for the Danish mission and also had trade expanded. He had a ship sail to Greenland, which brought the good news to Hans Egede, but at the same time also brought the Moravian Brethren into the country, which, contrary to the king's intention, was to compete with Hans Egede. In addition, the Greenlander Carl, who had been brought to Denmark, was brought back to Greenland by ship, whereupon a smallpox epidemic broke out among the Greenlanders, which in 1734 killed almost the entire population of the area. After the death of his wife on December 21, 1735, Hans Egede decided to leave Greenland. While the Danish missionary work had largely come to a standstill, the Moravians baptized the first Greenlander in their mission station Neu-Herrnhut in Noorliit in 1738 . Under Hans Egede's successor, Christian Drachardt , the Danish mission was weakened even further, as Drachardt himself sympathized with the Moravians and many Greenlanders switched from the Danish to the Moravian mission.

In 1754 the second settlement was founded in the district, namely the Fiskenæsset Lodge in Qeqertarsuatsiaat, to have a stopover between Nuuk and Paamiut. Then in 1758 a second Moravian mission station was founded in today's district, namely the Lichtenfels station in Akunnaat . The lodge received its own colonial district, which was independent of the colony.

In 1761 there were already 997 baptized people living in the colonial district of Godthaab, 440 of them in Neu-Herrnhut, 200 in the colony, 160 in Pisuffik, 90 in Qilanngaat , 68 in Ball's Revier (probably Qoornoq ), 20 in Qarajat , 11 in Kangeq, 10 on the Kitsissut (Kookøerne) and 8 in America.

At that time, the Greenlanders came into contact with firearms that the Danes brought them. This enabled them to increase their hunting yields, but this was also accompanied by overhunting, which soon led to a rapid decrease in the number of prey and thus to the poverty of the residents, which only improved in the middle of the 19th century.

In 1782 an epidemic broke out in Qeqertarsuatsiaat, but the outcome was mild because the population was divided up, which prevented all hunters in the area from dying.

From 1782 Nuuk was the seat of the South Greenland inspector and thus de facto the capital of South Greenland .

It was not until 1770 that Egill Þórhallsson succeeded in rebuilding the Danish mission by setting up mission stations in Qilanngaat and Pisuffik. In 1788, Poul Egede described the Danish mission as successful.

19th century

In 1800 847 people lived in the two colonial districts. During the war from 1807 to 1814, missionary work in Nuuk was made difficult. In 1832 the Moravians had 309 Greenlanders under them, while the Danes had 302. In 1836 Carl Peter Holbøll suggested moving the mission from Nuuk to Paamiut , where there were significantly more Greenlanders, but the idea was not implemented.

In 1846, Grønland's seminary was founded in Nuuk, which revolutionized missionary work through the regular training of Greenlandic catechists.

In 1850, 1289 people lived in the two colonial districts. In 1855, 418 Greenlanders lived in the colonial district of Fiskenæsset, 330 of whom belonged to the Moravians. The population was extremely poor and in 1872 the colonial district was dissolved and the lodge was incorporated into the colonial district of Godthaab. In 1877 the district area was reduced again when Atammik was transferred to the colonial district of Sukkertoppen.

In 1892 only 858 people lived in the colonial district. In 1900 there were 15 places to live in the colonial district, seven of which were Herrnhut, five Danish and three belonged to both. In 1900 the Moravians left Greenland after there were no more pagans in the country. Then the population rose sharply. In 1918 there were 1182 people in the district.

20th century

From 1911 Nuuk was the seat of the South Greenland Regional Council . From 1950 the National Council for all of Greenland met in Nuuk, making the city the sole capital of Greenland.

The colonial district was its own parish. In addition, the district doctor of the medical district of Nuuk and Paamiut had his seat in Nuuk.

As a result of the fact that Nuuk is the oldest town in Greenland, the number of Greenlanders of European descent in the district was high from an early age. Eventually this became the norm and ethnicity was not recorded in the censuses. In 1840 45% of the Danish missionary population was mixed ethnic. On the other hand, the Moravians took care that their Greenlanders did not mix with Europeans, so that at the beginning of the 20th century there was an extremely high number of pure Greenlanders compared to the rest of Greenland.

Since 1911 the colonial district was divided into the five communities Godthaab , K'ôrnoĸ , Kangeĸ , Narssaĸ and K'eĸertarssuatsiait (Fiskenæsset). In 1918 a total of ten residential spaces were subordinate to these communities. During the administrative reform of 1950, the colony district became Nuuk Municipality. During the administrative reform in 2009, the municipality of Nuuk was incorporated into the Kommuneqarfik Sermersooq .

places

In addition to the city of Nuuk , the following villages are located in the Nuuk district:

The Neriunaq shepherd's settlement is also located in the district.

In addition, there are the following abandoned shepherd settlements:

In addition, the following abandoned settlements are in what is now the district area:

There are also some abandoned stations in the Ammassalik district:

coat of arms

Blazon : "In blue over a floating golden kayak paddles and three lowered silver Spitz wave beams in front of a bar as continuous silver mountain a silbergesockeltes red Greenland house with forward facing two gables, beams as thirteen silver windows in gables and wall, also in the gables each a large silver screen , covered with a green roof with three red dormers with silver windows, a red roof ridge, equipped in the middle with a red weather vane with a compass rose and a cock. "

Declaration of coat of arms: The red Greenland House is the main building of Grønland's Seminarium , a symbol of the city, the silver mountain represents the mountain Sermitsiaq , which is also a symbol of the city. The kayak paddle and the wave bars symbolize the relationship to the sea.

literature

Coordinates: 64 ° 0 ′  N , 48 ° 0 ′  W