Saturday, July 27, 2024

Danish India

From Links for July 2024 from Astral Codex Ten. 

Slightly related: history of Danish India.

Slight means vestigially.  

But Danish colonies in India?  I knew of Greenland, Faroe Islands, Iceland and the Caribbean Islands now known as the US Virgin Islands.  But I don't think I knew that Denmark had possessions in India.  For some 200 years apparently.  Denmark was also a joint kingdom with Norway for many years.  

The three Indian territories included

the town of Tharangambadi in present-day Tamil Nadu state, Serampore in present-day West Bengal, and the Nicobar Islands, currently part of India's union territory of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands. 

The Nicobar Islands were a notoriously dangerous set of islands for mariners since the beginning of the modern era (1500) with an aversion for castaways and an affinity for cannibalism.  They were apparently pretty hard to colonize as well.

Organised European colonisation on the islands began with the Danish East India Company in 1754/56. During this time they were administered from Tranquebar (in continental Danish India) under the name of Frederiksøerne. Missionaries from the Moravian Church Brethren's settlement in Tranquebar attempted a settlement on Nancowry and died in great numbers from disease. The islands were repeatedly abandoned due to outbreaks of malaria: 1784–1807/09, 1830–1834, and finally from 1848 gradually for good. 

Any other Danish colonies that I lost track of or overlooked?

Several trading stations in the vicinity of modern Ghana.  I do recall these.

And of course,  St. Thomas, and St. Jan (now St. John), and St. Croix in the Caribbean.  I knew about these as well but hadn't thought of them in a long while.

So no other novel colonies that I can spot.  Which doesn't mean there isn't the odd trading station or two that I am overlooking.  I remember how surprised I was many years ago to find that the Netherlands had, back in the seventeenth century, once had some colonies in the area now known as Brazil.  

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