Iceland review - 2015, Page 53

ICELAND REVIEW 51
HISTORY
fully authorized the whaling by the Basques
in the region, accepting payment. Sources
mention both friendly and hostile rela-
tions between the locals and newcomers,
while Icelandic-Basque language glossaries
indicate that long-term trade beyond 1615
existed between the two nations. However,
as Denmark held a monopoly on trade in
Iceland at the time, such practices were
banned, and may hence have been hushed
up.
Then disaster struck. On September
21, 1615, as the Basque whalers had set
sail for their home in Gipuzkoa, their
ships loaded with the summer’s harvest,
a gale force storm smashed their ves-
sels against cliffs in Reykjafjörður fjord in
Strandir. Three crewmembers died, but 82
or 83 survived and they decided to row on
small boats northwards and then around
the Hornstrandir region. At Dynjandi in
Jökulfirðir, they stole a cutter, in the hope
that it could carry them home. However, it
wasn’t large enough, and the whalers split
up: 18, led by captain Martín de Villafranca,
set up a base on Æðey, from where they
hunted whales; 14 broke into a warehouse
in Dýrafjörður; and the remaining men,
about 50, carried on to Patreksfjörður fjord
in the western peninsula.
ATTACK OF AN ANGRY MOB
“After the shipwreck, the Basques were
desperate. The language difficulties didn’t
help. It was mostly priests they could talk
with because they understood Latin,” says
Ólafur in explanation of the whalers steal-
ing supplies from locals, which was used
as justification for going against them.
Xenophobia was rife, given that pirates had
raided Vestmannaeyjar in South Iceland
the year prior, Ólafur added, and farmers,
as poor tenants, weren’t likely to go against
authority. On October 5, locals attacked the
shipwrecked men in Dýrafjörður, killing all
but one teenager, who managed to escape
and join his companions in Patreksfjörður.
Separately from that incident, Ari ordered
that the Basques on Æðey be killed.
After the slaying of five men on the
island, Ari and his army of about 50 farmers
found de Villafranca and his 12 remaining