He said: “I don’t know really what claim Denmark has to it. But it would be a very unfriendly act if they didn’t allow that to happen, because it’s for protection of the free world. It’s not for us, it’s for the free world.” (npr.org, Jan. 26)
What Trump calls the “free” world are the countries which U.S. imperialism or its imperialist allies and partners dominate.
Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen of Denmark, in a contentious call Jan. 15 with then President-elect Donald Trump, made various suggestions for more cooperation, but insisted that Greenland, which already hosts an important American base, was not for sale.
How did Greenland become a Danish colony?
An Icelandic chieftain going by the name Erik the Red was banished for manslaughter in 980 and fled west with his supporters. Earlier in the 10th century, Norse explorer Gunnbjörn Ulfsson had encountered some land and spread news about it. Erik established a colony and gave it the “attractive” name of Greenland.
About 200 years later, Inuit people called the Thule began expanding into northern Greenland. They are the ancestors of most of the people in Greenland today, 87% of whom are Indigenous. The Thule had followed waves of peoples — Saqqaq, Independence I and II, Dorset I and II — who had spread to Greenland.
The Norse colonies in southern Greenland most likely succumbed to climate stresses made more intense by plagues in Europe and had completely failed by the end of the 15th century. But well before they collapsed, the Norse Greenlanders had submitted to Norwegian rule in 1261 under the Kingdom of Norway. Norway and Denmark entered into a personal union in 1380, which meant each kingdom had the same monarch.
Contact between Greenland and Europe was renewed when Dutch and English whalers set up whaling stations in the 1600s.
A Dano-Norwegian missionary named Hans Egede began the second Norwegian colony in Greenland in 1721. He had convinced the Protestant monarch that there was a chance that the earlier settlements had survived but were mired in Catholicism. He also wanted to convert the Indigenous people to Christianity.
The next change in Greenland’s status occurred in 1814, the year when France’s Napoleon Bonaparte suffered his final defeat. King Frederik VI of Denmark ceded Norway to Sweden in the Treaty of Kiel on Jan. 14, 1814. Iceland, the Faroe Islands and Greenland remained in the possession of Denmark.
This long, involved, historical tale shows how Denmark became the colonial power in Greenland.
Greenland’s current status
During World War II, Germany occupied Denmark. Britain occupied the Faroe Islands to keep the Germans out. After the Germans established some clandestine weather stations in eastern Greenland, which were discovered by the Sledge Patrols the Greenlandic authorities had established, the U.S. sent in several Coast Guard cutters and a few hundred soldiers, effectively creating a military protectorate over Greenland. Washington invoked the Monroe Doctrine to keep British forces and Canadians from intervening. (See “Fury and Ice” by Peter Harmsen for more details.)
The Danes found it difficult to get rid of the U. S. soldiers after the war ended, but finessed the situation by joining NATO.
There was a referendum in 2008, in which 75% of the vote was in favor of Greenland becoming a self-governing territory of Denmark, which retained control of its defense and foreign affairs. Greenland got control over areas including education, health, fisheries and the environment. It also got the right to hold a referendum on independence. In February 2024, Greenland formally declared independence as its ultimate goal.
Multiple U.S. interventions
Internal discussions within the United States government about Greenland have occurred in 1867, 1910, 1946, 1955, 2019 and 2025. Acquisition has been advocated by Secretaries of State William H. Seward and James F. Byrnes and publicly by President Donald Trump.
After acquiring Alaska in 1867, William H. Seward, then U. S. secretary of state, pursued the acquisition of both Greenland and Iceland. Reports suggested that negotiations with Denmark for a $5.5-million purchase were nearly complete. However, no formal offer materialized.
Seward was in a weak position because of the purchase of Alaska which he promoted and the assessment that President Andrew Johnson, who was being impeached, was wasting the people’s money on ice-filled empty lands.
The English language website nunatsiaq.com from Nunavut, a territory in Canada that is about 90% Inuit, points out that the U.S. naval officer Robert Peary, who led several expeditions to northern Greenland in the last part of the 19th century, claimed his discoveries for the United States.
But the article goes on to say: “In a notable exception to the Monroe Doctrine, the U.S. recognized Denmark’s ownership of Greenland in exchange for acquiring the Danish West Indies (now the U.S. Virgin Islands). This agreement was intended to bolster American control over the Caribbean and protect the Panama Canal.”
Greenland for the Greenlanders!
Huntsville, Texas Within eight days in February, Texas executed two men, one innocent and the…
A tidal wave of demonstrations across Belgium on Feb. 13 brought out a multitude of…
February 19, 2025, Denver Ten thousand striking grocery workers at 77 King Soopers stores in…
Since April 2024, the Cleveland Palestine Advocacy Community and other organizations have been demanding that…
February 21, 2025, will mark the 60th anniversary of the assassination of Malcolm X. The…
A mass national demonstration Feb. 12 in front of Panamá’s National Assembly protested the regime’s…