EQEDE, HA.NS. 



EQBDE, HANa 



mif h* be Hring ignorant of the Gospel Greenlsnd had in fact been 

 red and colonised, not long before the year 1000, by the Nor- 

 rttled in Iceland, who, conscious of the bad effect of the 

 > of ' Iceland,' had taken cm to give to their new, and still lew 

 attractive, discovery the seductive appellation of 'Greenland,' which 

 had probably a gnat effect in drawing to thoc coaU the emigration 

 which might otherwise hare aet in to their third discovery, Vinland, 

 supposed by modem northern antiquaries to be MuaachaMtU. The 

 1 buck death,' or destructive plagne of the year 1849, and the attacks 

 of the natire BkntUings, or Esquimaux, had pat an end to the main 

 or ' weitcrn colony ' of the Norwegian! in Greenland, but in the 

 time of Bgede the e aet em coast had been for some centuriei almost 

 liianioillilii from ice, and it was supposed by many that the ' eastern 

 colony,' spoken of by the old IceUiidio writers, wai on the eastern 

 ooaet, and might therefore be itill existing unknown to the rest of the 

 world. Egede, after receiving tome suggestions to this effect from a 

 Mend in Bergen, became BO enthusiastic on the subject, that he wrote 

 to the bishop* of Bergen and Trondbjem in 1710, proposing an ex- 

 pedition to conTert the Greenlanders ; and on ita striking him that 

 neb a recommendation would come with an ill grace from one who 

 did not offer to undertake it himself, he made the offer, supposing 

 however, as he himself tells us, that as it was war-time, and the expe- 

 dition would require some money, the proposal would not be accepted. 

 He received in reply a strange letter from the bishop of Trondhjem, 

 Krog, in which the prelate suggested that " Greenland was undoubtedly 

 a part of America, and could not be very far from Cuba and Hispaniola, 

 where there was found such abundance of gold ; " concluding that it 

 wae very likely that thoe who went to Greenland would bring home 

 "incredible riches." Egede had made this offer, very oddly, with- 

 out acquainting his wife ; and as Boon as she became aware of it, by 

 the receipt of the bishop's letters, she with her mother and bis 

 mother assailed Egode with such Hrong remonstrances, that, he says in 

 his own account, he was quite conquered, and repulsed his folly with 

 a promise to remain in the land which " God had placed him in." 



Hatters remained in this state till some quarrels with a neighbour- 

 ing clergyman, and the trouble they occasioned, led Egede, " fishing," 

 a he (ays, "in troubled waters," to mention the project again to his 

 wife, when he no longer found her so unwilling, and having obtained 

 her consent he thought lightly of any other obstacle. So strongly 

 were both their minds now set on the undertaking that in 1717 he threw 

 np hi* benefice at Vaagen, and went with his wife and four children 

 to Bergen to endeavour to found a company to trade with Greenland, 

 which he considered an indispensable part of his plan for founding a 

 miarion. Moat of the merchants laughed at his project, and some 

 considered him mad ; but just about this time Charles XII. of Sweden 

 was killed at Frederikshald, when apparently on the point of con- 

 quering Norway, peace was restored, and Egede determined to lay his 

 pinna before the king at Copenhagen. Frederick IV. of Denmark, 

 who had already in 1714 founded a college for the propagation of the 

 Gospel, sent Egede back to Bergen with bis approbation ; a company 

 was formed, to which Bgede put down his name for the first subscrip- 

 tion of 800 dollars, and finally on the 3rd of May 1721,. a ship called 

 ' Haabet,' or ' The Hope,' set sail for Greenland, with forty-six souls 

 on board, including Egede and his family. On the 3rd of July, after 

 a dangerous voyage, they set foot on shore at Baalsrevier on the 

 western coast, and were on the whole hospitably received by the 

 native*. The very appearance of the Greenlanders at once put a 

 negative on the supposition that they were descended from the 

 Northmen, and their language, which it wag now the missionary's 

 business to learn, was found to be entirely of a different kind, being 

 in fact nearly related to that spoken by the Esquimaux of Labrador. 

 The climate and the (oil were both harsher and ruder than the 

 Norwegians bad expected, and the only circumstance that was in their 

 favour was the character of the inhabitants, which, though at first 

 excessively phlegmatic, so as to give the idea that their feelings had 

 been frozen, was neither cruel, nor, as was found by further experience, 

 unadapted to receive religious impressions. The natives however 

 grew apprehensive when they found that their visitors built a hou*e 

 and intended to stay out the winter, and they were encouraged in 

 tln-ir fears by the Dutch captains who visited the coast for the 

 purposes of trade. The Dutchmen, Egede remarked, did more trade in 

 half an hour with the natives than the Danes could succeed in doing in 

 half a year, by the simple expedient of giving more wares in exchange 

 and of better quality. For some years following both the mission 

 and the factory bad a hard battle for life. The settlcrx, unable to 

 obtain sufficient food by Cubing and the chase, were entirely dependent 

 on the supply of provisions sent them by annual store-ships from 

 Denmark, and when this supply was delayed, were reduced to short 

 rations and the dread of starvation. On one occasion even Egede's 

 courage gave way, and he had made up his mind to abandon the 

 mission and return to Europe nnlen the provisions arrived within 

 fourteen day*. Hit wife alone opposed the resolution and refused to 

 pack up, persisting in predicting that the store-ship would arrivn in 

 time, and ere the time had elapsed the ships, which bad mined the 

 coast, found their way, and brought tidings that rather than give np 

 the attempt to Christianise Greenland, the king had ordered a lottery 

 in favour i.f it, and on the lottery's failing had imposed a special tax on 

 Denmark and Norway under the name of the Greenland Assessment. 



In 1727 the Bergen company for trading with Greenland was dissolved, 

 from the losses it had sustained, and the Danish government then 

 resolved on founding a colony in Greenland, and sent in 1728 a ship 

 of war, with a body of soldiers under the command of a Major I'liars, 

 and several hones, a sufficient proof that the nature of the country 

 was not understood in Denmark, as horses among the rooks of 

 Greenland were totally useless. The soldiers grew mutinous when 

 they saw to what a country they had been sent, and Egede found his 

 life in more danger from bis countrymen than it had ever been from the 

 natives. The death of King Frederick IV. in 1731 occasioned a change 

 of affairs. The new king, Christian VI., determined to break up the 

 colony and recall all his subjects from Greenland, with the exception 

 of such as chose to remain of their own free will, to whom he gave 

 directions that provisions were to be allowed for one year, but that 

 they were to be led to expect no further supply. Egedo had then 

 been ten years in Greenland, and his labours were beginning to bear 

 fruit. His eldest son Paul, who was a boy of twelve when they landed, 

 had been of much assistance in learning the language and in other 

 ways ; his wife and the younger children had aided greatly in producing 

 a favourable effect on the natives, who bad seen no Europeans before 

 except the crews of the Dutch trading-vessels. The Angekokn, or con- 

 jurers, who might almost be called the priests of the native religion, 

 had been awed, some into respect and others into silence, by the mild- 

 ness and active benevolence of the foreign Angekok ; the natives had 

 seen with wonder the interest he took in their welfare, and if they 

 refused to believe the new doctrines themselves, bad not forbidden 

 them to their children, of whom Egede had a hundred and fifty 

 baptised. The elder Greenlanders, when Egede told them of the 

 efficacy of prayer, asked him to pray that there should be no winter, 

 and when he spoke of the torment of fire said they should prefer it 

 to frost. Egede, confirmed by his wife, resolved to remain, and this 

 resolution greatly increased his influence over the. Greenlanders, who 

 knew that it could only proceed from zeal in their behalf. 



The king of Denmark, unable to resist bis constancy, sent another 

 year's provision beyond what he had promised, and finally, in 1733, 

 announced that he had changed his mind and determined to devote 

 a yearly Bum to the Greenland mission. A dreadful trial was 

 approaching. The Greenland children, of whom some bad occasionally 

 been sent to Denmark, almost all died of the small pox. Two of 

 them were returning homo from Copenhagen in the vessel which 

 came in 1733, one of them died on the voyage, the other brought the 

 disorder to Greenland, and the mortality was dreadful. From 

 September 1733 to Juno 1734 the contagion raged to a degree that 

 threatened to depopulate Greenland. When the trading agents after- 

 wards went over the country they found every dwelling-house empty 

 for thirty leagues to the north of the Danish colony, and the same 

 devastation was said to have extended still farther south : the number 

 of the dead was computed at 3000. That winter in Greenland offered 

 a combination of horrors which could seldom be equalled, but they 

 were met with admirable constancy by Egede and his indefatigable 

 wife. The same ship that brought the small pox had brought the 

 assistance of some Moravian missionaries, the first of that devoted 

 band who were to continue in Greenland the work that Egede had 

 begun. In the year 1734 his son Povel Egede returned from Copen* 

 hagen, whither he had been sent to study, and the elder Egede, finding 

 his health begin to fail, applied for leave to return home. He was 

 now unable to continue his active labours as a missionary, but thought 

 he might be of use in instructing in the language those who might 

 devote themselves to the work, and would otherwise have to lose a 

 portion of their time on arriving at the spot in studying the rudi- 

 ments. The permission reached him in 1735, but his return was 

 delayed from the illness of his wife, who longed to see her native 

 land again, but was denied that gratification, dying finally in Green- 

 Und on the 21st of December 1735, at the age of sixty-two. Egode 

 carried her coffin with him to Denmark, and she was burin I in 

 Copenhagen, where she was followed to the grave by the whole of the 

 clergy of the city. A seminary for the Greenland mission was e-tab- 

 lished there in 1740, and Egede was appointed superintendent with 

 the title of bishop. In the same year he preferred a memorial for an 

 expedition to be sent out to discover the lost 'eastern colony ' of the 

 old Norwegians, and offered to accompany it in perron, but the 

 proposal was not adopted. He had when in Greenland made a land 

 expedition with a similar view, and discovered some ruins of buildings 

 of a different character from those of the Ureenlanders. It is now 

 generally boliered, since the researches of Graah and other*, that the 

 ' eastern colony ' or ' Osterbygd ' was so named merely from its position 

 with regard to the other, and that both the ' eastern ' and ' western ' 

 colonies were on the western coast. In 1747 Egede retired from his 

 office at Copenhagen, and spent most of the remainder of his life at 

 the house of his daughter Christine, who was married to a clergyman 

 of the Island of Fulstor. While he was at Copenhagen he had married 

 second wife, who accompanied him to Fainter, but before bis last 

 Illness he expressed his wish that he should l>c lmric<l l>y the aids of 

 bis first wife at Copenhagen, and said that if they would not promise 

 to carry this wish into effect, he would go to Copenhagen to die 

 them He died at Fainter on the , r ,th of November 1758. 



Egede was the author of two works on the subject that occupi-l 

 bis life. One, the history of his mission, ' Omstnndelig Kelation 



