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SECOND CONTACT: PATTERNS OF “SECOND ENCOUNTERS”...
This account explicitly informs us that the objective of the kidnap was to obtain
as it were intel on Greenland in general, after transporting the maltreated
party to Denmark. Again, it strikes us how casually the Pilot imparts his
message unto the reader: in his discourse, there is no sign of a consideration
for the victims’ humanity, no consciousness or understanding of them being
like unto us with, more than likely, families to sustain, no insight into this
incident being, in all probability, a fatality for an entire community, not
a slight indication of remorse either, and, conversely, no anticipation of a
potential kickback. Clearly, Hall talks about something we today consider a
capital crime as a matter of course, as a routine event of the day. To be sure,
however, this just was a routine event on such journeys in his time. Yet the lack
of recognition that the Greenlanders were humans in their own right, with
sound moral concepts and principles of their own kind, this neglect of the full
humanity of other humans would have a fatal backlash on Hall six years later.°”
WILLIAM BAFFIN’S ACCOUNT OF HALL’s LAST VOYAGE
After a failed endeavor to reach Greenland in 1607, James Hall, now in the
quality of captain, set sail for the Western coast of Greenland in 1612, under
a British flag, with two ships, employing William Baffin, on the latter’s first
Arctic voyage, as navigator. We have two sources at our disposal for this
inauspicious journey: Baffin’s diary, which is an almost day-by-day account
of what happened,** and Quartermaster John Gatonbe’s detailed Account of
the English Expedition to Greenland, under the Command of Captain James
Hall, in 1612.° Both narratives abound in descriptions of meet-ups with
Greenlanders, friendly and hostile alike; and both are sensitive to Aboriginal
presence, characterizing Kalaallit behaviour and lifestyle comprehensively. In
this respect, they are very different than the bulk of the early English accounts
of Newfoundland. Baffin even proffers a precious summary of “the state and
manner of the people of Groenland” at the close of his text, which includes
engrossing reflections on Aboriginal religion (“generally they worship the
Sunne, as chief author of their felicitie”),°° burial practices, diet, and travel.
57 Captain Hans Bruun’s curt logbook specifies that one of the five captured Greenlanders
committed suicide by springing overbord while sailing home: “den 16 <of August 1606>
spraank en aff min grönlender offuer borde” (Pingel, De vigtigste reiser, 71).
58 Another Account of the Latter Part of the English Expedition to Greenland under the
Command of Captain James Hall, in 1612, in Gosch (ed.), Danish Arctic Expeditions, Vol. 1,
120-137. See the same text under the heading William Baffin, The Fourth Voyage of James
Hall to Groenland, wherein he was set forth by English Adventurers, Anno 1612, and slaine
by a Greenlander, in Clements R. Markham (ed.), The Voyages of William Baffin, London,
Printed for the Hakluyt Society, 1891, 20-37.
5° Gosch (ed.), Danish Arctic Expeditions, Vol. 1, 82-119.
60 Tbid., 136.
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