Note 882 — Chapter XIII · —Island Peoples

The shifting fate of political detachability becomes moderated in islands of the open ocean, because of their remoteness from the colonizing or conquering movements emanating from the continents. In contrast to the changing political connections of thalassic isles, consider the calm or monotonous political history of outlying islands like the Shetland, Faroes, Iceland, Canaries, Madeira, Cape Verde, Azores, St. Helena, Ascension and Hawaii. The Norse colony of Iceland, as a republic, maintained loose connections with its mother country from 874 to 1264; then for nearly six centuries it followed the political fate of Norway till 1814, when an oversight left it in the hands of Denmark on the dissolution of the union of Denmark and Norway. The Azores have known no history except that which came to them from Portugal; even their discovery goes back to a Saracen navigator who, in 1147, sailed from the mouth of the Tagus a thousand miles straight into the sunset.882 For two hundred years thereafter extreme isolation kept them outside the pale of history till their rediscovery by Prince Henry, the Navigator.