Greenland expeditions under Christian IV.
The Greenland expeditions under Christian IV were three expeditions to Greenland commissioned by the Danish-Norwegian King Christian IV , which took place in the years 1605 to 1607. In particular, they were supposed to re-establish contact with the Scandinavian colonists on Greenland ( Grænlendingar ).
prehistory
The Danish-Norwegian crown, which had a monopoly on trade with the colonies, last sent a merchant ship to Greenland in 1406, but then increasingly lost sight of the settlements due to urgent problems. Although no news of any kind had been received from the colonies since then, it was thought possible that they might have flourished in the meantime, since Greenland was, according to ancient traditions, extremely fertile ("green") land. In the course of the 16th century, Frederick II organized several Danish expeditions to arctic waters, which never landed. His successor on the throne, Christian IV , took up the subject again. Since English captains such as Martin Frobisher , John Davis and George Weymouth had recently made successful trips to the Arctic, he hired seafarers from the British Isles. The expeditions had four main goals:
- determining the cheapest sea route to Greenland
- the search for the colonies of the Scandinavian settlers
- exploring Greenland
- the renewal of the Danish claim to territory on Greenland
First expedition in 1605
Three ships were made available for the first expedition: The Trost , the Røde Løwen (“Red Lion”) and the Pinasse Katten (“Cat”). The Scotsman John Cunningham was appointed as expedition leader and captain of Consolation , his helmsman was James Hall , who most likely had gained experience in Arctic waters on previous voyages and possibly with John Davis' expeditions off the west coast of Greenland in the 1580s the lot was. The Katten was commanded by the Englishman John Knight , only the command of Røde Løwen was given to a Dane, the noble Godske Lindenow .
The ships set sail from Copenhagen on May 2, 1605 . On the recommendation of Navigator Hall, the traditional route of the Scandinavians across the Atlantic was not taken, instead they drove between Orkney and the Shetlands , north of Fair Isle , and then headed northwest towards the Davis Strait . This route had already been used by John Davis . The trip across the Atlantic went without any special incidents.
Not far from Greenland, the fleet was briefly separated in thick fog, and Lindenow asked Hall for a map. On June 11th, the Røde Løwen separated from the other ships. This was preceded by an argument between him and Hall; Lindenow was of the opinion that by taking the north-west course, far from the Greenland coast, they would miss the colonies of the settlers, and then went on a south-east course directly on the coast on their own.
The Røde Løwen was drifted very far to the south, and only after several unsuccessful attempts did Lindenow manage to go ashore between the 62nd and 63rd parallel (near today's Qeqertarsuatsiaat ). He met Inuit , from whom he bought large quantities of skins as well as walrus and narwhal horns . Lindenow had two of the Inuit arrested. Then he set off for the return journey and arrived back in Copenhagen on July 28th. After his arrival he was hailed as the rediscoverer of Greenland.
The Trost and the Katten kept the old northwest course. On June 12th they went ashore at 66 ° 30'N in Itillip Ilua , where Davis had already anchored in 1586. While Cunningham stayed there, Hall set out on June 20 on board the Katten further north. During this trip, Hall made four maps, including the first map of the west coast of Greenland. On June 26th, a member of the crew, Hendrich Hermansen, was abandoned for disobedience on the coast. The group reached 68 ° 35'N on June 27th and sighted the southern foothills of Disko Bay . Hall wanted to continue the journey, but was changed by his crew, who feared the Consolation would head home without them. On July 10th they met again at the Itillip Ilua at the Consolation . During the voyage, Hall collected rock samples which, according to later investigations, contained silver ore and were of importance for the following expedition.
Cunningham had meanwhile made contact with Inuit and captured four of them. It was hoped that they would provide information about the Scandinavian settlements and that they would also be used as translators and mediators on future expeditions. However, an Inuk defended himself so violently against his capture that he was shot. The Inuit tribe attacked the ships but were driven away by cannon fire. The fleet made its way home and reached Copenhagen on August 10th.
The expedition was hailed as a success. Although the colonies of the Nordic settlers had not been found again, a cheap sea route to Greenland had been found that could be of great use for future expeditions. In addition, coveted goods such as furs and horns had been brought with them, and silver ore found in the rock also nourished the hope for large mineral deposits in Greenland. Finally, the four cards Hall made were also of great value. Hall was promoted to Maat ( Styrmand ) on September 20 and was awarded an annual salary of 500 Reichstalers ( Rigsdaler ) - the usual salary of a mate in the Danish Navy at the time was only 50 to 90 Reichstaler.
The five Inuit deported to Denmark were unable to provide any information about the Nordic colonies. At first it was even considered that they could be descendants of the Scandinavian settlers. Obviously it was hardly possible to communicate with them. Three Greenlanders were taken on the second expedition in 1606, but two of them died on the outward journey and one was on a ship that had to turn back off Greenland. After several unsuccessful attempts to flee to Greenland, all of them probably died within a few years in Denmark.
Second expedition 1606
After the encouraging results of the first expedition, it was soon decided to put together an even larger follow-up expedition. Two more ships were made available for this purpose: the Ørnen ("Adler") with Hans Bruun as captain and the Gilliflower under the command of Carsten Richardson from Holstein . Lindenow was appointed head of the expedition and captain of the flagship Trost . Hall was again the navigator and helmsman of consolation . The Røde Løwen commanded Cunningham, the Katten the Norwegians Anders Nolk . Knight had meanwhile returned to England.
The fleet left Copenhagen on May 27, 1606. On the way there, Hall noted in the logbook that he had sighted Buss Island (a phantom island ). Lindenow ordered a more northerly course than Hall in the first expedition in order to bring the fleet closer to the coast from the start. However, the ships got caught in the East Greenland Current , which allowed them to drift far west, so that the expedition had to go ashore on the Labrador Peninsula on July 13th . Lindenow now took a northerly course until a shipping channel in the ice towards Greenland was discovered on July 19 at 64 ° N. However, in thick fog and pack ice, the ships lost contact with each other, and only two of the five ships, the Trost and the Ørnen , reached the Greenland coast on July 27th. They first anchored in the Kangerlussuaqfjord near today's Sisimiut . On August 6, the ships entered the Itillip Ilua. First and foremost, large amounts of rock were now collected and brought onto the ships. Trade with the Inuit was slow, however. On August 9, a member of Lindenow's crew was abandoned on the coast; he was killed by the Inuit that same day. In the afternoon, Lindenow captured five more Inuit, one of whom jumped overboard on the way back. The expedition began its return journey on August 10 and arrived in Copenhagen on October 4.
The results of the second expedition were disappointing. So no new discoveries had been made. The hope for silver in the rocks that they brought with them was not fulfilled, rather it turned out to be completely worthless. Neither was there any evidence of the fate of the colonies. It was clear, however, that, contrary to the old traditions, Greenland was not a fertile but rather a barren, inhospitable land. The idea that one could trade profitably with supposedly wealthy and prosperous settlements on Greenland obviously had to be buried.
Third expedition 1607
Even if the second expedition was unsuccessful, Christian IV did not give up hope of at least finding the Nordic colonies again. Old reports stated the location of the settlement in the south of Greenland, on the so-called "Eriksfjord", and referred to it as "Eastern settlement". Since the two previous expeditions had gone ashore much further north and also on Greenland's west coast, there was a possibility that a settlement had remained in the southeast. Christian IV therefore commissioned a third expedition, which should now explore the south-east coast of Greenland between the 60 ° and 61 ° degrees of latitude and in particular should go in search of the "Eriksfjord".
Carsten Richardson took over the management of the expedition , who in addition to the consolation only had the bark Greenland at his disposal. James Hall was once again given the post of helmsman and navigator. It was known that the east coast of Greenland was extremely difficult to reach, as one had to sail against strong currents ( Greenland Current ) and pack ice drifting south. Hall prepared for the trip by carefully studying Martin Frobisher's reports from the 1570s. However, due to a faulty map, the Zeno map , Frobisher believed Greenland to be the (nonexistent) island of Frisland and then relocated Frobisher Bay to the coast of Greenland. So his reports on "Greenland" actually described the north-west coast of Canada .
In order to be able to communicate with the Scandinavian settlers they hoped to find, a large part of the crew was recruited from Norwegian or Icelandic-speaking men. After setting sail from Copenhagen on May 13th, 1607, a northerly course was taken to Fair Isle than before, and on June 8th the east coast of Greenland was sighted at 59 ° N. In the period that followed, however, no suitable anchorage was found, and bad weather and storms also hindered the onward journey. The ships reached the 64th parallel on July 1, but could not advance to the coast due to the thick ice. When the drinking water reserves were running low and the ships were badly damaged by ice, it was decided to turn back. At first, Richardson only planned a stopover in Iceland and then set off again for Greenland with repaired ships and replenished supplies. However, the ships got caught in a severe storm that drove them off the coast of Norway . On July 25, the ships entered Copenhagen again.
consequences
After the third expedition had also proven to be a failure, Christian IV put the topic of Greenland aside. In 1619 he sent an expedition led by Jens Munk to Hudson Bay to search for the Northwest Passage , before the Thirty Years War finally pushed all Danish ambitions in the Arctic into the background. In the following years, English sailors such as James Hall , Robert Bylot and William Baffin took over the further exploration of the polar region.
literature
- Christian CA Gosch: Danish Arctic Expeditions, 1605 to 1620. The Hakluyt Society, London 1897. ( online )
- William J. Mills: Exploring Polar Frontiers: A Historical Encyclopedia. ABC-Clio, Santa Barbara 2003, pp. 176f., 286f., 381f., 548f., ISBN 978-1-57607-422-0 .
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b Gosch (1897), p. XXV
- ↑ Mills (2003), p. 167
- ↑ Gosch (1897), pp. XXXII f.
- ↑ Mills (2003), p. 288
- ↑ Commissions for Videnskabelige undersøgelser i Grønland (ed.): Meddelelser om Grønland . Volume IX (1889), p. 46
- ↑ Gosch (1897), p. LXX
- ↑ Gosch (1897), p. LIV f.
- ↑ Gosch (1897), p. LXXXVI
- ↑ Gosch (1897), pp. XCI ff.
- ↑ Mills (2003), p. 382
- ^ Gosch (1897), S. XC
- ^ Gosch (1897), S. XCIC