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Five hundred years before Christopher Columbus’s “voyages of discovery,” the Vikings met Native Americans. At a time when the ocean west of Norway was considered the end of the world, brave travelers went first to Iceland, then to Greenland, and finally to North America.
It was a bad start for both parties when Vikings and Native Americans first met. Leif Erikson, setting out from the recently established Norse colony in Greenland, found a beautiful land to the west that he named Vinland in the year 1000 AD. After hearing about this success, Leif’s brother Thorvald decided to lead an expedition of his own.
It was the year 1002. He and his crew made it safely to Vinland, where they stayed in Leif’s booths and used their ships to explore for about two years. But what they found there shocked everyone!
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The Vikings found the three humps when they looked at a headland at the mouth of the fjord. Nine men were hiding under the bumps, which turned out to be canoes. The Norseman killed eight of them, but the ninth one got away and told the others what was happening. The next day, Thorvald and his men saw a group of canoes coming down the fjord toward them. Even though they were outnumbered, they fought bravely with their iron weapons.
During the battle, Thorvald was shot in the armpit by an arrow. Thorvald knew that the wound was fatal, so he asked to be buried on this beautiful cliff. Thorvald wanted a Christian burial, so his men buried him on the headland and put crosses at his head and feet. Leif was the first European to set foot on the North American continent, and Thorvald was the first European to be buried there.
In the year 1010, the Viking leader Thorfinn Karlsefni founded a larger colony in the area now known as Newfoundland. Around 150 Norsemen, including warriors and their families, established a colony in the area now called L’Anse aux Meadows, not far from the original settlement.
During their stay of three years in North America, the visitors were threatened with extinction on multiple occasions by Skraeling warriors. Karlsefni and his men understood how dangerous it could be to give away their weapons, so they only did so on a few occasions when a truce could be negotiated.
It appeared like even the slightest provocation could spark a full-scale battle. According to Viking sagas, one raid by indigenous people started when a bull escaped from the Norse camp. The local warriors, who had never seen an animal like this before, were terrified and attacked the settlement. In the resulting fight, two Vikings were killed.
The land had plenty to offer the European settlers, but they were constantly under threat of attack from the Native Americans. The colony was eventually abandoned, and Europeans wouldn’t settle in the New World again until the late 15th century.
People call the way Vikings got to the Americas the “stepping stone route” because they went from one group of islands to another with only short stretches of open water in between. A significant change took place on this route not long after the year 800, when Scots fled to the Northern Isles after their country was conquered.
Humans had already settled on the Faroes and Iceland when Leif made his discovery of Vinland. Then, Erik the Red established a permanent Norse colony on Greenland.
After Greenland was settled, an Icelandic merchant named Bjarni Herjolfsson was the first European to see the North American continent. In 986, Bjarni returned from a trip to Norway to find out that his father had moved to Greenland with Erik the Red. Then he started his journey to Greenland.
After being in bad weather and not being able to see for a few days, Bjarni found himself off the coast of a steep, heavily forested area. Bjarni kept sailing north because it was clear that this was not Greenland. After wandering for two days, he reached a plain area covered with trees. He again tried but failed to land. Bjarni arrived at a location that appeared to be too isolated to be east after three days of traveling northeast. Four days later, he arrived at the Norse settlement in Greenland. Leif Erikson, son of Erik the Red, set out on another expedition after hearing about the widespread interest in Bjarni’s findings. Leif then went to Bjarni, bought his ship, put together a crew of thirty-five men, and set sail for the land Bjarni had told him about.
After going further out to sea, he landed on an island to the north and went back to the mainland. They sailed west of this and landed in a green area with a mild climate and salmon. They found that the land was covered with grapevines and grapes. So, Leif called the area Vinland.
When the Norse first stepped foot on the rocky shores of northeastern Canada a thousand years ago, it was a landscape that had already been inhabited by humans for around 8,000 years prior to their arrival.
According to Jette Arneborg, a senior researcher at the National Museum of Denmark, Norwegian Vikings had traveled to Iceland in the year 875, to the Faroe Islands in the year 825, and to Lindisfarne in the year 793. She clarified this information while speaking to a record audience at the Nordic Spirit Symposium.
It did not take the Norse very long at all to set sail from their home colony in Greenland and make their journey across undiscovered waters to the continent of North America.
Birgitta Wallace, a former archaeologist who worked for Parks Canada, reported that they established in the area that is now known as L’Anse aux Meadows, which is located on the northern shore of Newfoundland. She made a reference to the grapes and butternuts that were discussed in the Icelandic Saga, pointing out that grapevines grow up tree trunks. There has been much discussion on whether or not the Vikings actually discovered grapes, but Wallace seems to corroborate that they could have very easily created wine.
In 1061, archeologists found turf longhouses and workshops at the northernmost tip of Newfoundland, L’Anse aux Meadows. This was the first concrete evidence that Norse people existed in North America. Even though the longhouse is what most people think of when they think of a Norse home, the Inuit and other native Americans also built homes with similar designs. Radiocarbon dating of organic material found at the site shows that it was occupied for a short time between 980 and 1020, which fits with what the sagas say.
But Meadows is nothing at all like the Vinland that is talked about in the sagas. Because the winters were harsh and there were no wild grapes, it was very unlikely that this was Leissbuir. Most likely, L’Anse aux Meadows was a stopping point for expeditions that went farther south. The fact that butternuts were found among the food scraps at the site shows for sure that these kinds of trips were made. Native to North America, butternut walnuts can only be found 500 miles to the south in New Brunswick.
Now the question is: if Vinland wasn’t in L’Anse aux Meadows, where was it? There is a high degree of certainty that Helluland and Markland are Baffin Island and Labrador, respectively. However, the saga’s description of Vinland has parts that contradict each other.
Settlement on Greenland lasted for 500 years, but the settlement at L’Anse aux Meadows has a strong historical connection with some of the “Vinland” sagas that were written in the 13th century CE.
Academics today agree that the Norse settlement on the tip of Newfoundland only lasted about 20 years and, at its peak, had anywhere from 30 to 160 people living there. Even though more archeological evidence of Norse settlement has been found in southern Newfoundland, it seems those whose ancestors left Africa and moved west toward the Pacific Ocean.
Do you know that we have a day called Leif Erikson day? We bet you don’t! The state of Wisconsin officially recognizes October 9 as “Leif Erikson Day” thanks to a law approved in 1929. The U.S. Congress officially requested and authorized the annual proclamation of October 9 as “Leif Erikson Day” in 1964. Bill Clinton declared Monday, October 9, 2000, to be Leif Erikson Day by Presidential Proclamation 7358 on October 6, 2000.
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References:
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leif_Erikson
- https://www.thearchaeologist.org/blog/what-happened-when-the-vikings-met-indigenous-americans
- https://militaryhistorynow.com/2013/02/20/old-world-vs-new-the-first-battles-between-native-north-americans-and-europeans/#:~:text=Bloody%20First%20Contact%20%E2%80%93%20When%20Vikings%20Clashed%20with%20Native%20North%20Americans,-20%20February%2C%202013&text=Vikings%20settled%20in%20North%20America,Europeans%20would%20fight%20against%20Aboriginals.
- https://www.norwegianamerican.com/vikings-encounter-native-americans/
