Hans Egede and the work for the mission service

Together with his wife, Gertrud Rask, their children Poul aged 12, Niels aged 11, Kirstine aged seven and Petronelle aged six, Hans Egede boarded the ship Haabet on 2 May 1721 and sailed out from Bergen to begin his journey to Greenland. Onboard were also the contractors and workmen who would remain in the country with them. The group counted a total of about 50 people.

Since 1711, Egede had proposed to King Frederik IV to establish a colony in Greenland and operate a mission from there, and in 1719 he received the backing of the King. The project received financial support from a group of merchants from Bergen, who founded Det Bergen Grønlandske Compagnie which would be responsible for voyages and trade. 300 rigsdaler had been allocated for Hans Egede’s annual salary.

Hans Egede had prepared himself thoroughly for a mission among the unbaptised, but at his departure he still did not know whether the population of Greenland consisted of descendants of the Norse or ‘real savages’. From 1261, the Norse had paid taxes to the Norwegian throne, and although no communication had come from the Norse since 1408, the Danish-Norwegian kingdom had maintained its power over the country. Moreover, Christianity had existed in Greenland in the past; Erik the Red’s son, Leif, built the first church in the year 1000, and the country was a diocese in the years between 1124 and 1378.

The construction of the Colony of Hope

The ship Håbet arrived at a small archipelago at Kangeq at the mouth of Nuup Kangerlua (Godthåb Fjord). A boatman from a Dutch whale hunting ship helped them into port, and on the last part of the journey they were joined by a lot of Inuit kayaks. Hans Egede set about the establishment of the provisional colony, the Colony of Hope, and at the beginning, the Inuit curiously followed the establishment and regularly lent a helping hand.

Hans Egede found no descendants of the Norse and devoted his mission to the Inuit. In Danish colonial administration sources, the Inuit are consistently referred to as ‘Greenlanders’.

The mission’s view of the pagan Greenlanders

Except during winter, when Greenlanders lived in their earth or peat huts at their winter settlement, Greenlanders lived a nomadic existence hunting for game. Up to 40 skin boats with a total of about 500 people took the long journey from the southernmost Greenland and southern East Greenland each summer to Qeqertarsuup Tunua (Disko Bay) to hunt whales. After wintering, the journey went south again. Along the way, they entered into marriages with inhabitants of other settlements and traded with other Greenlanders and European whalers.

A key element of the Greenlanders’ belief was that not only humans, but everything in nature had a soul. It was believed that the actions of humans had an influence on the behaviour of the game and that a number of taboo rules had to be followed to ensure that the game would be caught. When the proceeds of the hunt became meagre or stayed away, an ‘anqakkoq’ – a shaman – was consulted who could help restore balance.

For Hans Egede, such a way of life was pagan, and he used threats and sometimes physical violence in the struggle to eradicate the shamans and drum song. Language problems made it even more difficult for Hans Egede to get the more than 200 Greenlanders at the small colony near Kangeq to accept the Christian message, and the first Greenlander was baptised on 1 January 1725.

Establishment of the colony in Godthåb

The project’s economic foundation, the Bergenskompagniet, was not very successful either. The Greenlanders’ brisk trade with the whalers made it so difficult for the trading enterprise to get the economy to balance that its activities ceased in 1726 and the king had to take over the trade.

The administration of cases regarding Greenland was moved from Bergen to Copenhagen in 1728. In the same year, Hans Egede left Håbets Ø (Island of Hope) and moved the colony to present-day Nuuk, which he gave the name Godthåb. King Frederik IV died in October 1730, and the heir, King Christian VI, commanded a halt to colonisation in 1731 and ordered all employees working with the mission and trade in Greenland to return home.

Hans Egede and his family, along with a few others, a total of 15 people, decided to stay in the country. The rest of the crew left the country, taking six Greenlanders with them. Shortly after their arrival in Copenhagen on 2 September 1731, the king changed his mind and instead urged the Danish-Norwegian citizens to form a new trading company in favour of colonisation.

In 1733, King Christian VI gave permission for the Moravian Brethren Mission to send three missionaries to Greenland. They were supposed to support Hans Egede in his missionary work, but were also allowed to work for their own cause. The Brethren Mission, which was based in Herrnhut, Germany, established the mission station Ny Herrnhut approximately half a mile from the colony of Godthåb.

Two of the six younger Greenlanders whom the colonists had taken to Denmark in 1731 were on the same ship as the missionaries. They had been allowed to travel home after the other four had died from smallpox. One died en route, while the other, Carl, only fell ill after arriving in Godthåb. By the time he died four months later, he had managed to pass on the infection. The smallpox epidemic ravaged at Godthåb in 1733‑1734, and Hans Egede reported that only just over twenty baptised people had survived the epidemic.

Hans Egede saw a need for the establishment of more colonies in order to expand the mission and trade. On 25 July 1734, his son Poul Egede inaugurated a new colony, Christianshaab (today: Qasigiannguit), with his first sermon as a newly qualified priest. The colony was established by Jakob Severin, who since then also established the colonies of Jakobshavn (today: Ilulissat) in 1741 and Frederikshåb (today: Paamiut) in 1742.

Hans Egede and Seminarium Groenlandicum

Together with his son, Niels, and his two daughters, Hans Egede left Greenland in June 1736. He was burnt-out, depressed and disillusioned at not having managed to attract more Greenlanders to be baptised. At the same time, he was full of sadness and guilt for all those who had lost their lives during the smallpox epidemic, and he mourned the death of his wife who died on 21 December 1735.

In 1737 the Seminarium Groenlandicum was established in Copenhagen. The Mission College employed Hans Egede to lead the training of missionaries and advise the mission authorities on Greenlandic conditions. He wrote some textbooks to use for teaching in Greenland. When he resigned in 1747 he was replaced by his son Poul Egede, who since 1740 had served as his aide.

In 1744, Poul Egede published a translation into Greenlandic of the four Gospels and in 1750 a Greenlandic–Latin dictionary. In doing so, Greenlanders were given the opportunity to read the Christian message in their own language.

Further reading

• Building customs and architecture
• Churches and church building
• Inuit way of life
• Language
• Religion and religious communities
• The Inuit culture, precolonial period
• The Norse
• The colonial period until the war years
• Towns and settlements

Read more about History in Greenland