Islands of Dreams - The Nicobar Chronicle

There is interest in Danish colonial history and those who were enslaved – here is the account of an island group that few today know anything about: the Nicobar Islands in the Indian Ocean. The islands were under Danish sovereignty for more than 100 years …

Why read about some remote, now almost forgotten tropical islands that you can’t even visit? Because these lush islands near the Equator played a role in the Danish consciousness and in our colonial history for more than a century.

The Nicobar Islands (Fredericks Islands, the East Indies) were occupied by Danish–Norwegian troops in 1755 with a dream of creating a counterpart to the Danish West Indies—only much larger. But it wasn't going to be easy… Some of the people sent there did their best to turn those dreams into reality. They wanted to create a secure base for voyages between Europe and China—and back. Often their efforts were in vain. Sometimes tragicomic. But it was never dull.

The Nicobar Islands hide many accounts driven by idealism, rock‑solid faith and the struggle to survive. And descriptions of the indigenous population, the "Fredericks Eylændere", whom we quickly learned to toast with but never really came to understand. All kinds of folk met there: forest people, Indian sepoys, African slaves and Chinese laborers; bold Norwegians, cheeky Danes, bureaucrats and barons; faithful servants and power‑hungry officials. And missionaries who fought devils, mosquitoes and crazed ants and were constantly tested in their faith; surrounded by pirates, fever‑stricken sailors and doctors who did their best but rarely had anything in the medical chest that helped. In the background were absolute monarchs and imaginative imperialists who blew golden soap bubbles and dreamed of turning our colony into an important trading centre, a new flourishing Singapore.

The book is illustrated with contemporary engravings and photos – including drawings found at the University of Kiel and samples from a partly unknown collection of photographs at the National Museum.
Read more about the history and the islands on the blog KOUSTRUPS KRØNIKE.

About Søren Koustrup
Born 1 Sept. 1944 in Copenhagen. A bookseller with a pronounced travel gene. Since 1998 a freelance editor and author. He has written children’s, school and travel books, often with a geographical or exploration‑historical angle, including GALATHEAS FORUNDERLIGE REJSE, MAMMUTMANDEN and FLAMBOYANTEN – about the discovery of New Guinea.
Koustrup's great‑great‑grandfather, the illustrator Christian Thornam, worked on the Nicobars in February 1846.

336 pages. 
Paperback with flaps.