Part of a continuing weekly series on Alaska history by local historian David Reamer. Have a question about Anchorage or Alaska history or an idea for a future article? Go to the form at the bottom of this story.

One of the many longstanding misconceptions about Alaska is that it is an island, not metaphorically but literally. For decades, many Lower 48 classrooms featured maps that inserted Alaska off to the side, the territory and then state within a little box. So, more than a few people interpreted that to mean Alaska was an island. In 2021, Shutterfly used this tragicomic misunderstanding as the basis for a commercial.

Every good Alaskan knows their home state is about 2.5 times the size of Texas, a fact always worth remembering. Yet, as vast as Alaska is, it still would not be the largest island in the world, if it were an island. In total area, at around 836,000 square miles, Greenland is the record holder, roughly 25% larger than Alaska. And those two territories — Alaska and Greenland — have another, more historically relevant connection. In the 1940s, State Department officials considered trading part of Alaska for part of Greenland.

Alaska and Greenland first crossed paths within the expansionist mind of Secretary of State William Seward. In 1867, the same year he negotiated the purchase of Alaska from Russia, he also initiated discussions with Denmark to purchase the Caribbean islands of St. Thomas and St. John. Former Treasury Secretary Robert J. Walker suggested the talks expand to include Greenland and Iceland.

In 1823, President James Monroe declared an end to further European colonialism in the Western Hemisphere, where the United States would instead be the dominant power. This was the Monroe Doctrine, which would become a pillar of American foreign policy, paradoxically denouncing the imperialism of the elder countries in favor of the imperialism by the newer America. The push west across the continent and the various interventions into other North and South American nations, to varying degrees, philosophically derive from the Monroe Doctrine.

In tune with the political attitudes of the time, outright purchases were then an acceptable method of territorial expansion, including the 1803 Louisiana Purchase, 1819 Adams-Onís Treaty (Florida), 1854 Gadsden Purchase (southern Arizona and New Mexico), and on through the 1867 Alaska Purchase. Relevant to this reading, President Andrew Jackson’s administration was the first to suggest buying Greenland, back in 1832.

Seward was a fervent Monroe Doctrine adherent and, therefore, an avid expansionist. Among other beliefs, he envisioned a world where Canada and Mexico were merged into the union. As for good old Alaska, negotiations wrapped up at the end of March 1867. The purchase treaty passed Congress and was signed by President Andrew Johnson on May 28, 1867. The territory was formally transferred in an Oct. 18, 1867 ceremony at Sitka.

So, long story short, Seward was quite willing to consider buying Greenland and Iceland. Both islands were then Danish colonies. Greenland is now an autonomous territory within the Kingdom of Denmark, and Iceland became fully independent in 1944. Seward authorized Walker to research the idea, which resulted in an 1868 State Department study, “A Report on the Resources of Iceland and Greenland.”

Combined with the purchase of Alaska, Greenland’s primary appeal was as a geopolitical tool to influence the eventual acquisition of Canada. The report makes this point explicitly: “Now, the acquisition of Greenland will flank British America for thousands of miles on the north and west and greatly increase her inducements, peacefully and cheerfully, to become a part of the American Union.” With both Greenland and Canada, as previously with Alaska as well as most subsequent proposals, the desires of the actual residents were worth something between a backward glance and a blank, empty gaze. That is to say, they and their wishes mattered not at all to decision makers in Washington.

Seward eventually finalized a deal for St. Thomas and St. John. At $7,500,000, it had a higher price tag than Alaska, and the island residents even voted overwhelmingly in favor of the transition. However, the treaty was not ratified on the American side, caught as it was amid some particularly nasty political infighting. With his own reputation under assault, Seward abandoned his dreams for Greenland.

In the early 1900s, Danish officials considered selling Greenland to the U.S., an idea that evolved into a more formal swap proposal detailed in a 1910 letter from the American ambassador to Denmark, Maurice Egan, to the State Department. In order, Denmark would give Greenland to the United States in exchange for a southern group of the Philippines, including Mindanao and Palawan. Denmark would then trade those islands to Germany for regions of the northernmost German state, Schleswig-Holstein, which had historically been part of Denmark. In this, Egan was simply a messenger. He described the offer as an “audacious suggestion,” and the entire pitch died an instant death.

In 1916, Denmark agreed to sell the entire Danish West Indies, including St. Thomas and St. John, to the United States for $25 million in gold. After the official transfer in 1917, those islands are now collectively called the U.S. Virgin Islands. The proclamation for the purchase coincidentally included a declaration in which the United States officially recognized Danish authority over Greenland, that “the United States of America will not object to the Danish Government extending its political and economic interests to the whole of Greenland.” This passage represented an exception to the Monroe Doctrine and can be interpreted as America formally ceding its interest in Greenland, for the nonexistent impact that it had, even in the near future, let alone more recently.

Arctic adventurer Robert E. Peary explored Greenland extensively in the 1890s. He was also a Monroe Doctrine hardliner and attempted to influence the proceedings through the media. In a New York Times article, he stated, “Geographically, Greenland belongs to North America and the Western Hemisphere, over which we have formally claimed a sphere of influence by our Monroe Doctrine. Its possession by us will be in line with the Monroe Doctrine, and will eliminate one more possible source of future complications for us from European possession of territory in the Western Hemisphere.” Essentially, no one at the time was sufficiently impressed by his argument.

On April 9, 1940, Nazi Germany invaded Denmark, more as a step toward Norway than for any regard for Denmark’s minimal strategic importance. From an imperial perspective, that left Greenland unattended. Exactly one year later, Denmark and the United States signed the Agreement Relating to the Defense of Greenland. As a defense of Greenland was, to a great extent, a defense of America and its interests, the pact allowed Americans to build, maintain, and operate whatever military, meteorological, or logistical installations on the island as deemed necessary for the war effort.

In an important detail, the agreement also declared, “The Government of the United States of America reiterates its recognition of and respect for the sovereignty of the Kingdom of Denmark over Greenland.” Article IX notes, “The Government of the United States of America will respect all legitimate interests in Greenland as well as all the laws, regulations and customs pertaining to the native population and the internal administration of Greenland.”

That said, once the war concluded, the idea of buying Greenland outright arose again. Sen. Owen Brewster of Maine declared American ownership of Greenland “a military necessity” in a Nov. 10, 1945 Collier’s magazine article straightforwardly titled “Should Greenland Be American?” Within the government, the Joint Chiefs of Staff drove the interest, seeking to at least maintain, if not expand, the American military presence in Greenland. In April 1946, State Department official John Hickerson attended a Joint Chiefs planning committee and reported, “practically every member … said our real objective as regards to Greenland should be to acquire it by purchase from Denmark.”

Reading the mood, the State Department released a study that May: “Proposals with Respect to Greenland.” The report ran through the military and political context, then considered various approaches with which to ensure a continued American presence in Greenland. Purchasing the island outright was only one of the possibilities considered.

Most of the documentation for this episode comes from letters, memos and this report. These sorts of sources can make for dry reading, but there is joy in the interagency frictions that frequently reveal themselves in the text. For example, the above report notes, “The purchase of Greenland appears to be the solution preferred by the Planning and Strategy Committee of the United States Joint Chiefs of Staff, although the Secretary of State has not been formally advised of this view by the Joint Chiefs of Staff themselves.” In a State Department report written by a State Department employee, the disdain for the Joint Chiefs is barely hidden between the lines.

Enter Alaska once more. As the report notes, a straight purchase would gain Denmark only money against an immeasurable loss of national pride and international prestige. Therefore, its authors considered alternatives, primarily a trade, territory for territory. In exchange for zones of military interest, America would swap juicy swaths of Alaska, Arctic land for Arctic land. Specifically, America would offer oil-rich stretches of the North Slope.

In the interest of accuracy, the following is the direct quote from the report. “In view of probable strong Danish opposition to the sale of Greenland, it has been suggested that as an alternative we seek to acquire only those areas of the island of value to us from a military viewpoint and, in return, cede to Denmark an equivalent amount of territory in the Point Barrow district of Alaska. The Danes would be permitted to develop any mineral resources found there, including petroleum, with the proviso that all oil produced be sold to this country.”

Contrary to some recent accounts of these discussions, American diplomats were well aware of the potential mineral wealth beneath the North Slope, as evidenced by the direct reference to petroleum. President Warren Harding established the Naval Petroleum Reserve No. 4, now the National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska, all the way back in 1923. In 1944, the Navy began a large-scale exploration of the region, including numerous wells, to locate and estimate the oil and natural gas reservoirs. While no one, including the State Department diplomats, then knew the extent of the northern Alaska oil reserves, they were certainly aware that they were offering something of value for something of value.

As an aside, the report also claimed, “No criticism has been leveled at our treatment of the indigenous population of Alaska.” Again, no one went around asking Alaska Natives for their thoughts on any of this.

Alas for any Danish immigrants or descendants living in northern Alaska, the Point Barrow swap was deemed a non-starter. As the unnamed author(s) declared, this proposal “may also be discarded since the difficulties of negotiating an agreement of this type would be as great if not greater than those for cession of the island, while our military and related interests would better be served if we owned Greenland in its entirety.”

After its discussion on Alaska, the calculation of a monetary offer for Greenland is one of the report’s more fascinating passages. First, it described Denmark as a “weak state” due to its occupation during World War II. Second, there was the $25 million paid for the Danish West Indies. It concluded, “Assuming the potential defense value of Greenland to us is greater than that of the Danish West Indies in 1916, it is felt that $100,000,000 in gold would not be too large a price to offer.” Thus, by one old estimation, Greenland is worth four U.S. Virgin Islands.

On Dec. 14, 1946, Secretary of State James Byrnes made the $100 million offer to Danish Foreign Minister Gustav Rasmussen, who was initially flummoxed by the surprising bid. Byrnes optimistically reported, “Our needs … seemed to come as a shock to Rasmussen, but he did not reject my suggestions flatly and said that he would study a memorandum which I gave him.” Given time to recover, Rasmussen called the proposal “absurd” and told the American ambassador to Denmark that “while we owe much to America, I do not feel that we owe them the whole island of Greenland.” As the news spread about Denmark, opposition to an outright sale crossed all political divides.

Negotiations between the two countries from there focused on extending the existing military partnership. On April 27, 1951, a new Defense of Greenland pact was signed, allowing the American military presence in Greenland to expand, with “exclusive jurisdiction over those defense areas,” except over Danish nationals. Danish sovereignty over Greenland was again confirmed. The agreement was amended in 2004 to recognize Greenland’s increased autonomy via its Home Rule government.

Various officials — always American, never Danish — occasionally brought up the idea of buying Greenland. It was the sort of idea that came up in random meetings every few months or so. In 1959, the State Department’s Northern European Affairs officer William M. Kerrigan offered the most scathing indictment of such proposals. He wrote, “The final point as I recall was that any overt action in the direction of attempted purchase of Greenland could be extremely dangerous for the retention of our activities there, and could hardly improve our status, since we are permitted to do almost anything, literally, that we want to in Greenland.”

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Key sources:

Dyer, Brainerd. “Robert T. Walker on Acquiring Greenland and Iceland.” Mississippi Valley Historical Review. 27, no. 2 (1940): 263-266.

Egan, Maurice Francis. Letter to Assistant Secretary of State. September 20, 1910.

“Greenland-Alaska Land Swap Is History.” Anchorage Times. May 3, 1991, A1, A14.

Hubbard, Charles J. “Should Greenland Be American?” Collier’s. November 10, 1945.

Jacobsen, Marc, and Sara Olsvig. “From Peary to Pompeo: The History of United States’ Securitizations of Greenland.” In Greenland in Arctic Security, edited by Marc Jacobsen, Ole Waever, and Ulrik Pram Gad. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2024.

Kerrigan, William M. Memorandum to Robert M. Brandin. August 7, 1959, United States Department of State.

Peary, Robert E. “Greenland as an American Naval Base.” New York Times. September 11, 1916, 8.

Peirce, Benjamin Mills. A Report on the Resources of Iceland and Greenland. Washington, D.C.: United States State Department, 1868.

Kiffer, Dave. “Alaska for Greenland?” SitNews. August 20, 2019.