In my Aug. 9 letter to the editor, I wrote about possible candidates for the 51st state in the Union. Those candidates were divided into three categories: U.S. capital and current U.S. territories, Article IV Section 3 state (one that could split off from a current state) and potential new territories. The third category potential new categories currently has one candidate that being Greenland, but at one time or another throghout our history that were other candidates, such as parts of western Canada, the Canadian province of Newfoundland, Cub, the Yucatan Peninsula, Iceland, Baja California, the Mexican state of Sonora and the South American country of Guyana. A brief overview of these potential new states is provided in the book “Lost States: True Stories of Texlahoma, Transylvania and other states that never made it.” Which when read along another book “How the States got Their Shapes” and its companion book “How the States got Their Shapes Too: The People Behind the Borderlines” shows how the U.S. came into being and how easily a map of the U.S. could look significantly different than it currently is.
Greenland, the world’s largest island with a potential treasure trove of national resources ranging from iron, diamonds, oil, rare earth metals to uranium, is currently an autonomous territory of Denmark. It also occupies a stragetic position in the Artic Ocean and is considered part of North America. The U.S. has shown interest in buying this territory “since the mid-1800’s” (Trinklein 46). So far Denmark has not shown interest in selling this territory. Whether or not Greenland decides to remain a territory of Denmark, become independent, join the U.S. or even Canada. The U.S. should strive to maintain good strategic relations with our neighbors at our northern and southern borders, something that has kept our nation safe along with having two oceans as natural barriers. One needs only to look at the history of Europe, Africa and Asia, along with the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962, to understand the benefits of such a policy.
My next letter on the subject of the 51st state will go over the prospect of statehood for the U.S. capital and the current U.S. teritories of Guam, Puerto Rico, U.S. Virgin Islands, American Samoa and the Northern Mariana’s Islands.
