In the 1720s, when the modern colonization of Greenland began, the Danes used the term "colony" as synonymous with mission and trade station, and this term continued in use until 1953 when Greenland was formally made an integral part of Denmark. According to this terminology, "a colony" was a center in a colonial district.
The Greenlandic word for "colony" in this sense is niuertogarfik, "trade center," while Greenland as a whole, in relation to Denmark, was called nunasiaq, the same word used for other colonized areas in the world. The Danish use of these terms was somewhat peculiar, as Greenland was already regarded a part of Danish-Norwegian territory since the independent Norse medieval communities in Greenland had agreed to pay taxes to the Norwegian king about AD 1260 (Norlund 1934:25). Iceland had also agreed to this status as a tributary country in the same period (Norlund 1934:24). From 1380 to 1814, Denmark and Norway formed one kingdom (Kirkegaard and Winding 1949:62; Gad 1984:206). While the North Atlantic islands-including Greenland-were called bilande, "dependencies," the trade and mission stations in Greenland were called "colonies." In other areas where Denmark had colonies-in the West Indies, India, and Africa-the term "colony" covered the whole colonized area, according to the initial definition given in this paper. The difference was that the "colonies" outside Greenland were occupied with the purpose of economic and strategic exploitation, while Greenland was regarded as an inherited dependency. In Danish publications, the use of the term "colony" occurred increasingly after the extinction of the Norsemen in Greenland was a proven fact (Hansen 1992). The other colonies were founded in 1849, when Denmark ratified a constitution, administered from the Primer's office, while Greenland as a dependency was under the responsibility of the Danish Parliament. In this century also, Greenland was often referred to as a "colony" by the Danes.