While the inhabitants of American Samoa at the time of annexation might not have become citizens, surely those born there since then are? They’re born within the territory of the United States and subject to its jurisdiction-- Aren’t those the criteria?
And people keep on mentioning “rare earths” in connection to Greenland. There probably are rare earths there, but there’s no way they’d be economical. Rare earths are found all over the place: What’s “rare” about them is that the concentration is very low. You can mine them anywhere, so where you do mine them is where transport is easy and labor costs are low. A frozen wasteland in the middle of nowhere, under the jurisdiction of a first-world country, is the last place you’d want to put a rare-earth mine.
Over the years, Congress has extended automatic citizenship status to Puerto Ricans, Guamanians, Virgin Islanders, and so forth. (8 U.S.C. § 1401 has a whole mess of additional rules about this stuff.)
(This is why U.S. passports still say “citizen/national of the United States named herein”–all U.S. citizens are also U.S. nationals, but the aforementioned “U.S. nationals” from American Samoa are not U.S. citizens, and their passports have a notation to that effect.)
The whole thing is not without controversy and is the subject of an ongoing lawsuit that is working its way through the U.S. courts system, so this could certainly change. (For that matter, even if SCOTUS rules that all of this is constitutionally permissible, Congress could eliminate the “citizen/national” anomaly by a simple law.)
Note that at least some American Samoans don’t want the “nationals but not citizens” law changed, for fear that a change in the citizenship status of the territory would open up American Samoa to being subject to various other provisions of the U.S. Constitution, which might call into question the territory’s local laws about communal land ownership.
In the Insular cases, decided after the Spanish-American war, the Supreme Court drew a distinction between territories which were incorporated into the US and on the path to eventual statehood, and unincorporated territories. The Constitution does not fully apply in the unincorporated territories i.e. the American colonies.
No, that’s not really correct. Norway was not “part of” Denmark at the time, any more than Scotland was “part of” England under the Stuarts. The two were separate kingdoms in a personal union. Although Denmark was the dominant partner, Norway maintained its own identity, and together they were known as the “Twin Kingdoms.” The initial recolonization attempts were made by Norway, and Greenland was regarded as a possession of Norway. But if you want, we can say the recolonization was by the Kingdom of Denmark-Norway.
Once again, you are repeating ftg’s conflation of “the Norse” and “Norway.” abel29a’s initial post that set this discussion off referred to Norway, not the Norse. While “Norse” can refer to Scandinavians in general, it is usually used to refer to the Norsemen, the speakers of Old Norse between 800-1300 AD. Greenland was initially colonized by the Norwegian-born Eric the Red leading a group of colonists from Iceland.
What happened between the Norse and the Dorset (if anything) is mostly irrelevant to the colonization that took place in the 1700s by Norway (or Denmark-Norway if you prefer). Norse/Norwegian/Danish occupation had lapsed for almost 300 years by that time. Denmark-Norway established sovereignty over territories that were at that time already occupied by the Inuit. Maybe the Inuit had “nicked it*” from the Norse and the Dorset centuries earlier, but Norway in turn subsequently “nicked it” from the Inuit.
*or however you want to characterize taking over territory without the consent of its existing inhabitants.
In the past, treaties which provided for the cession of territory from one country to another (which has fallen out of use compared to the past) would often - though by no means always - include option clauses, whereby the residents of the ceded territory would automatically acquire the citizenship of the acquiring country but retain the right to opt, within a defined period, for retaining their previous citizenship instead. An example is Article 91 of the Versailles Treaty.
I think you are confusing Norways union with Denmark, with the later union with Sweden.
When the initial union with Denmark began in 1380 under Olav IV, (sort of, his mother was the regent and later added Sweden to her realm) it was indeed a personal union where he was king of both nations. This lasted until the Bergen treaty of 1450, that unified the nations under the Danish King Christian I, but with Norway retaining its own privy council/administrative cabinet (riksråd): This cabinet was immediately disregarded as the king pawned off parts of Norway, and subsequently had its influence and powers eroded until 1536.
In 1536 King Christian III issued a proclamation containing “Norgesparagrafen” the “Norway paragraph” specifying that Norway and all its parts should no longer be considered a separate kingdom, but a province under the Danish crown just like Jylland, Fyn, Skåne etc.
Some remnant administrative functions stayed in Norway until Fredrick IIIs coup in 1660, but in fact that transition to absolute monarchy in practice changed very little for the Norwegian province.
Formally, the period 1380-1537 is the union, 1537-1660 is the vassalage, and 1660-1814 is the absolute monarchy. Conversationally, in Norway we just refer to the whole thing as “firehundreårsnatta” -the four hundred years long night. Comparisons with the current setup of Scotland and England are probably apt for the union period, but afterwards it went from the England-Wales arrangement to more like the current relationship of England and Mercia.
By the 1700s there had not been a Norway for hundreds of years. Its like blaming Poland for the actions of Russia during the Crimean War. The 1850s one I mean.
Erik Thorvaldsson, “the red”, who colonized Greenland was originally Norwegian, probably from Rogaland. In 985 he took a number of colonists from Iceland, which had been settled mainly by Norwegians in the period 800 to roughly 930. Iceland became a part of Norway after taking a vote on it in 1262. The Norse in Greenland had formally joined Norway the year before.
Normally you would be right about not confusing Norwegians and Norse, but in this case the Greenland settlement was led by a Norwegian, consisted of people whose families had emigrated from Norway recently, and the lands formally became a part of Norway about halfway through the settlements history. In this case the Norse were also mostly Norwegians and the lands formally Norwegian for half the span of the Norse Greenland settlement.
You say the initial colonization was Norwegian because it was led by the Norwegian Eric the Red. However, even though the recolonization in the 1700s was promoted by the Norwegian Hans Egede, it wasn’t. You can’t have it both ways.
However, if you want to insist that it was Denmark instead of Norway that nicked Greenland from the Inuit, fine.
However, as I’ve pointed out, this is irrelevant to the question of who nicked Greenland from the Inuit (which was the original point in question).
I believe I can:) When Greenland was settled, Norway was a going concern. It was an active polity with its own King, administration, armed forces and territories. At that time, you could say that something was done by Norway as an entity, and Norway was responsible for it.
By the 1700s none of these things were true. (well, there was an army in Norway that was almost entirely Norwegian levies at the lower level) But all the administrative and the executive power were Danish, the clergy were mostly Danish, and the aristocracy were totally Danish. Norway was a province of Denmark with almost but-not-totally zero self-determination as an entity, and less influence on foreign policy than the Isle of Man had on the UKs decision to enter the Iraq war.
If Denmark in the 1700s decides to colonize Greenland, and Copenhagen orders, funds, and equips the expedition its a Danish move even if the leader hailed from the province of Norway.
Poland was partitioned towards the end of the 18th century and ceased to exist for a while. (Except to the Ottomans). If the general of the Russian forces in the Russo-Persian war during this period had been from the previously polish territories, would we be referring to it as a war between Poland and Persia?
Yes, I know. But I can’t see the Greenlanders signing up to a treaty which requires them to choose one of (a) full citizenship in a country to whose sovereignty they are not subject, and (b) second-class citizenship in the country to whose sovereignty they are subject. Right now they are full citizens of the country that exercises sovereignty over them; why would they accept any lesser status?
