DANEMARK
BIBLIOGRAPHY OF DANISH WORKS CONCERNING COLONIAL HISTORY By
KAJ BIRKET-SMITH,
Ph. D.
Introduction In the position of Denmark as a colonial power there are two salient features, both of which tend to give the literature on colonial history its peculiar stamp. One is that at the present day Denmark has but one colony, viz. Greenland, and this country differs, on account of its Arctic nature, from the colonial possessions of most other European powers. The other important point is that at an earlier period Denmark had small colonies in Tropical Asia, Africa, and America. Greenland does not only differ from the ordinary type of colony on account of the geographical character. This country, the biggest island of the world, is also the oldest colony in existence. Since the discovery by Erik the Red in 982 or 983 A. D. Greenland was, during the middle ages, the seat of two small Norse settlements that in 1261 voluntarily submitted to the rule of the king of Norway. Later on the Norsemen disappeared from Greenland in a manner that till now has only been partly elucidated. However, ruins and other traces of Norse settlement