The North Atlantic Fisheries, 1100-1976 - University of Hull

non-Greenlandic speakers are at hand. In recent years people with a
knowledge of the language have read and translated Greenlandic
literature and newspapers. 169 Furthermore, some of the articles in local
newspapers have been translated into Danish for the authorities to read in
Copenhagen. These translations can be found in the archives. Some
Greenlandic fiction has also been translated into Danish. 170 Besides that,
Danish civil servants in Greenland have participated in the debate, partly
in the periodical Det grønlandske Selskabs Årsskrift and other
periodicals, and partly in memoirs. All administrative papers are in
Danish.
The changes in the material side of Greenlandic society are well
documented in contemporary reports among which the central one is
Beretning og Kundgørelser. An excellent statistical survey, covering the
period from about 1850 to 1938, was made in Copenhagen during the
war and published between 1942 and 1947. Its numerous tables and
textual explanations cover in many ways a broader field than the yearly
reports. Research on Greenlandic reactions in the period should
commence with the minutes of the Greenlandic Country Councils, which
were greatly concerned with the fishery. A print out for teaching
purposes of the debate on fishing between 1924 and 1939 covers 100
standard pages.
Changes in Greenlandic attitudes are harder to register. Some
important topics must at this point be left to speculation. Thus, Ditte
Goldschmidt pointed out in 1994 that because of the change in the
fishing economy the Greenlanders lost the last business in which they
were the acknowledged experts, namely seal hunting. Now they had to
be pupils of Danish civil servants to earn a living. This must have been
detrimental to their self-confidence.
That the Greenlanders demanded that their children should be trained
in the Danish language puzzled the contemporary Danish authorities
who believed that this was due to the need to learn the new industries. 171
Another factor was the colonial situation in general. Assimilation was in
fact an issue for some colonial native elites in the French African
colonies between the wars. By considering the colonial status of
169 Among them Chr. Berthelsen, H.C. Petersen, and Kirsten Thisted
170 Mathias Storck, En Grønlænders drøm (1913). Augo Lynge, 300-år efter
(1931/1992).
171 Axel Kjær Sørensen (1983) 56-61.
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