Founding the Colonies
According to the Icelandic sagas, a man named Erik the Red was outlawed from Iceland and sailed west to explore a land that others had sighted. He spent several years there, then returned to recruit settlers. Tradition places the founding of the colony around 985, and the sagas say that a fleet set out with settlers and livestock, though not all of the ships arrived. The sagas were written down long after these events, so the details are uncertain, but archaeology confirms Norse farms in southwest Greenland from roughly this period.
The name Greenland is often said to have been chosen to attract settlers. Whether or not that is true, the fjords at the southern tip had real grass, enough to support cattle, sheep and goats during a short summer.
Two Settlements
The Norse lived in two clusters. The Eastern Settlement, in fact in the south, was the larger one. The Western Settlement lay farther north, near present-day Nuuk, and had fewer farms. Together, estimates of the peak population are usually in the low thousands, though scholars disagree and the number varied over time.
The main farmsteads were built from turf and stone, since there were almost no trees. Wood was a precious import or driftwood. Farms kept cattle in byres through the winter and sent sheep and goats to summer pastures. Hunting was equally important. Seals provided meat, oil and skins, and in the north the Norse traveled on organized hunting trips to Disko Bay and beyond for walrus and other animals.
Church, Chiefs and Trade
Greenland was Christian from early in its history. Remains of small churches survive across the Eastern Settlement, with the ruins of Hvalsey church among the best preserved. A bishop’s seat was established at Gardar in the twelfth century, with a cathedral among the larger buildings. Church officials and local chieftains controlled most of the best land.
There was no king in Greenland for much of the time. Settlers had an assembly, like their relatives in Iceland. In the thirteenth century, they accepted the overlordship of the Norwegian crown, as Iceland did, and from then on the colony depended on Norway for contact and trade.
The main export was walrus ivory, along with other valuable northern goods such as polar bear skins and falcons, traded for iron, timber, grain and church goods. Ships from Norway made the voyage only occasionally, and the journey was dangerous. The surviving written evidence mentions Greenland only rarely, which leaves large gaps. This is part of the wider story of Norse exploration across the North Atlantic, with Greenland the farthest settled outpost of Europe for many centuries.
Contact With the Inuit
Around the thirteenth century, the Thule ancestors of the Inuit moved into Greenland from the north and west. The Norse called native peoples skraelings, a word that appears in saga accounts of other encounters in North America. The relationship between the two groups is poorly documented. There are signs of trade, such as Norse items found at Inuit sites, and Icelandic annals mention violence. Scholars debate how much contact there actually was.
The Debate About the End
The last firm written record from the Eastern Settlement is a wedding recorded at Hvalsey church in 1408. After that, there are no later accounts from Greenland itself, and by the time European visitors came back in the early modern period, the Norse communities were gone. The Western Settlement seems to have been abandoned earlier, perhaps by the middle of the fourteenth century. Historians and archaeologists do not agree on why, and most think it was a combination of reasons rather than a single cause.
Climate. The medieval warm period gave way to a colder phase, sometimes called the Little Ice Age, and cooler summers would have shortened the growing season. This is the oldest explanation, and it still appears often, but it is no longer considered enough on its own.
Markets. Walrus ivory was Greenland’s most valuable export. Changes in European demand, along with competing supplies, may have cut the income that paid for imported goods. This is a common argument in modern research.
Environmental damage. Grazing and cutting turf can strain thin northern soils. Some studies suggest the Norse overworked their land, though others disagree about how severe this was.
Isolation. The Black Death hit Norway in the fourteenth century, and Norway’s weakened state may have cut shipping to Greenland. The crown also had other priorities, and fewer ships may have made the voyage.
Inuit relations. Some scholars suggest conflict, others that the Inuit’s hunting techniques were better suited to the Arctic and that the Norse failed to adapt. Others argue that the settlers did adapt, shifting toward seal hunting over time.
Some Norse may have left for Iceland or farther afield rather than perishing. Evidence is thin. Isotope studies of skeletons suggest that marine foods, especially seal, formed a large part of the diet later on, which hints at flexibility rather than stubbornness.
Why It Matters
Greenland shows how fragile medieval colonies could be. It was a European society on the edge of the habitable world, linked by thin trade lines to a mainland that had little reason to prioritize it. The story is sometimes told as a simple tale of failure. A more careful reading is that the settlements survived for roughly four and a half centuries, and their end was probably the result of several pressures building together.