The Children of Eric the Red Explore the West: The Norsemen Encounter Indigenous People of North America Suggested Grades: 9-12 n fourteen hundred and ninety-two, Columbus sailed the ocean blue…” “IWhat American child—or adult, if the truth be told—doesn’t mentally invoke this little rhyme to remember the year when Christopher Columbus left Spain, sailed across the Atlantic, and landed on the shores of what would come to be called “The New World” or “America?” We have no similar memory aid to help recall the earlier “Norsemen” or “Viking” explorers who journeyed across the ocean from Norway to Iceland, then to Greenland, and eventually to an area in North America that they named “Vinland” (“Wineland”). They explored and even settled briefly in North America nearly five hundred years before Columbus’s 1492 journey. While neither Columbus nor the Vikings discovered America — both North and Lesson Plan 1 South America had been inhabited for more than ten thousand years when Columbus arrived — it is fitting to credit the Vikings as the first Europeans to reach the American continents within recorded history. Background: The Vikings in North Greenland built a village at what is now America, and their Documents called L’Anse aux Meadows in north- ern Newfoundland. We know little about the Vikings who came to North America approximately one thou- • The first documentary evidence of sand years ago. Nor do we know much about Norse contact with lands west of the details of their experiences as explor- Greenland is a brief mention written ers and settlers here. A few documents, around 1130 A.D. in the Islendiga-bok. supplemented by archeological evidence, Adam of Bremen wrote the first datable demonstrate that these individuals did exist description of any significant length in and that they explored and briefly settled in the 1070s. North America; but otherwise, the available • Two lengthier texts, known as the evidence leaves a great deal to conjecture, Vinland sagas, were written down educated guesses, and imagination. The between 1200 and 1300 A.D., but they facts, as far as they are known, are as follows: are thought to reflect earlier oral tradi- • By the tenth century A.D., Norwegian tions –tales that had been told for gen- settlers had migrated from island to erations. The Groenlandinga Saga (The island across the North Atlantic. They Saga of Greenland) and Eiríks Saga Rauda settled first in Iceland, then in Green- (The Saga of Eric the Red), give two often land, and lastly in Canada. Archaeo- contradictory accounts of the events of logical evidence shows that sometime 980-1030 A.D. around 1000 A.D., mariners from 36 www.americanjourneys.org www.americanjourneys.org 37 • The last datable mention of a Norse col- now resides in the Royal Library, Copenha- ony on the American mainland refers to gen, Denmark. The book was first printed in events that occurred in 1161 A.D. Other the 1860s, photographic facsimiles were pre- documents make a few indirect refer- pared in the 1890s, and it was translated into ences to slightly later events. English in 1906. The translations included on the web site are from The Northmen, Colum- • Scholars suspect that climatic change bus and Cabot, 985-1503 (New York: Charles may have doomed the Vikings’ western Scribner’s Sons, 1906). settlements. Steadily falling tempera- The Saga of Eric the Red recounts a ver- tures throughout the region after 1200 sion of the colonization of Greenland by Eirík A.D. would have shortened both the Rauda Thorvaldsson (Eric the Red), provides navigation and growing seasons in stories about the adventures of the children Arctic Canada. By the 1500s, Greenland of Eric the Red, and describes the explora- also was empty of Norse settlers and tion of North America by Thorfinn Karlsefni. mariners. This text describes how Thorfinn established The first five documents in the Ameri- a North American base at Straumfjord and can Journeys website are related to the made voyages to the north, perhaps to the Norsemen and their North American activi- Labrador coast. Later, he made another ties. English translations of the two Vinland journey to the south and east, perhaps to the sagas appear in their entirety, as documents eastern side of Newfoundland’s northern tip. AJ-056, The Saga of Eric the Red (31 pages of The Vinland History of the Flat Island text); and AJ-057, The Vinland History of the Book recounts a series of voyages made Flat Island Book (22 pages of text). The web- sometime after Eric the Red’s colonization site also contains three briefer Viking-related of Greenland. Biarni Heriulfson made a voy- documents or excerpts: “From Adam of Bre- age with three landfalls; the first was per- men’s Descriptio Insularum Aquilonis” (AJ-058, haps Newfoundland, the second Labrador, 2 pages of text); “From the Icelandic Annals” and the third, farther north, could be Baffin (AJ-059, 1 page of text); and later references, Island. According to this saga, Leif Erics- “Papal Letters Concerning the Bishophric of Gar- son later made a voyage in which he sailed dar in Greenland during the Fifteenth Century” up the western coast of Greenland, across (AJ-060, 5 pages of text). to Helluland, south to Biarni’s second land- The two Vinland sagas, which are the fall which he called Markland, and finally focus of this lesson, were preserved in a to Biarni’s first landfall where grapes were manuscript volume called Flateyjarbok, or found—hence the name Vinland. This saga Flat Island Book. The sagas had already been tells of two other voyages, one led by Thor- passed down orally for generations, prob- finn Karlsefni, and another led by Eric the ably for more than three hundred years, by Red’s daughter, Freydis. the time they were written down in about Scholars generally believe that the 1387 A.D. as part of the Flat Island Book. The Helluland of these documents is Baffin manuscript was found in Iceland almost Island, and that Markland was somewhere three hundred years later, circa 1650 A.D. on the coast of Labrador. The possible loca- This manuscript volume of some 1,700 pages tions of Vinland, Leifsbudir, Straumsfjord, 36 www.americanjourneys.org www.americanjourneys.org 37 and other places named in the texts are still • Students will be able to extract factual hotly debated, with possibilities ranging and chronological information from as far south as Cape Cod, Massachusetts. a document, while drawing educated Despite its rich archaeological record, L’Anse conclusions about reliability both of aux Meadows cannot be positively identified portions of a text and as taken in its as any of the places mentioned or described entirety. in the documents. Connections with the Curriculum Objectives This lesson meets the following national his- Using selected excerpts from the two Vin- tory standards for grades 5-12: land sagas, this lesson will introduce stu- • Understand the stages of European dents to the existence and experiences of the oceanic and overland exploration, amid Norse explorers who reached northern North international rivalries, from the 9th to America ten centuries ago. It will also expose 17th centuries. (United States History students to the demands of working with Standards, Era 1: Three Worlds Meet, very early primary source texts, where chro- Beginnings to 1620, Standard 2A). nology and history blend inherently with folklore and literary traditions. The specific • Read historical narratives imagina- objectives of the lesson are as follows: tively, taking into account what the narrative reveals of the humanity of the • Students will be able to trace the spread individuals and groups involved—their of human adventurers on the North probable values, outlook, motives, American continent. hopes, fears, strengths and weaknesses. • Students will be able to compare and (Historical Thinking Standards, Histori- contrast different versions of the same cal Comprehension, Standard 2E). story as they are told within each of • Engage in historical analysis and inter- two documents. pretation by comparing competing • Students will be able to evaluate very historical narratives. (Historical Think- early texts that record the first explora- ing Standards, Historical Analysis and tions in terms of the literary tradition of Interpretation, Standard 3G). the time. The sagas had already been passed down orally for generations, probably for more than three hundred years, by the time they were written down in about 1387 A.D. as part of the Flat Island Book. 38 www.americanjourneys.org www.americanjourneys.org 39 Introducing the Material task will be to identify, print, and make cop- ies of excerpts that are of appropriate length This may be the first time your students have and complexity for your students, and that ever heard of any European “discovery” or best tie in to the particular subject matter of exploration of America before Christopher the course. Columbus. Even if they have heard of the This lesson plan offers sample excerpts Vikings, they probably don’t know details. and activities suited for a high school Ameri- So before you assign excerpts from the docu- can history class. The suggested passages ments, you will need to give your students focus on the Viking exploration of “Vinland” background and secondary information and other lands west of Greenland, and they about the Norsemen and their North Ameri- emphasize the experiences of Leif Ericsson can presence. (one of Eric the Red’s sons) and Thorfinn General Background Karlsefni (sort of a son-in-law of Eric the Red1). The suggested excerpts are paired or Have your students begin by reading the grouped, to facilitate development of stu- section in their textbook that mentions dents’ analytical and critical thinking skills.