The slave trade.
From what I had read in the ‘Immortal Order’ catalog, the slave trade in this 16th-century era was a field dominated by Spain and Portugal. That was the natural result. They were the only ones with colonies where they could put slaves to work. It might be a different story after the 17th century, when England, France, and the Netherlands began to seriously expand overseas, but for now, the only colonial empires were those two.
The Spanish and Portuguese utilized a large number of slaves to extract profits from their rapidly expanding new territories. However, the native population was rapidly declining due to epidemics such as smallpox, and later, the enslavement of natives was banned, so they came to utilize slaves from another place that was relatively resistant to disease and comparatively close to supply.
That is, slaves from West Africa.
When various kingdoms or tribes invaded others and abducted them, the American colonies would buy the slaves produced in this way. Then, when the gold, silver, and various cash crops produced by slave labor were moved to the motherland, those luxury goods were in turn paid to the ‘business partners’ and ‘slave producers’ in Africa, and they would buy more slaves.
This was the infamous ‘Atlantic Triangle Trade.’
And it was a ship and colony engaged in that trade that Drake had plundered. He had killed people indiscriminately, burned down houses and fences, and then plundered every last remaining treasure and piece of property.
“But, I mean… think about it. What are we going to do with slaves?” Amidst that, he had come to acquire black slaves.
“…I heard you have a history of working as a slave trader yourself.”
“Well, that’s true. But wasn’t that before the war with Spain? What am I to do with these slaves? Am I to keep them? If I feed, house, and clothe people I have no use for, just for the sake of showing off a bit, wouldn’t the tail be wagging the dog? Then do I sell them? Where? The English will refuse to buy slaves for the exact same reason as me, and all that’s left are the Spanish…”
And you stole them from those very Spanish. And since they were at war, it was even more impossible to sell them.
“It’s not like I’m running a charity; I can’t take them back to their homes in West Africa and free them, can I? I’d go bankrupt.” In truth, it didn’t seem likely that such a conscientious man would have decided to make a living through piracy in the first place. Wouldn’t a man who had just been happily slaughtering Spaniards and then said, ‘Oh! Slaves! I must free them!’ be closer to a broken person than a good one?
“But! To think that an English ally and colony would be established so close to my ‘place of business’!”
…Did he just call the sea where he commits piracy his place of business?
“Anyway, it all worked out, didn’t it? If Your Majesty purchases them, I don’t know how many you’ll buy, but…”
I suppressed a sigh and said, “All of them.”
“Uh… pardon?”
“I will purchase all of them.”
“…”
Drake, for a moment, looked dumbfounded, his mouth agape and his eyes blinking, then… his face brightened and he said, “Ah, ahahaha! It seems you needed more hands than I thought! Wonderful! However, the price is a bit steep…”
“Will it be sufficient if I pay for everything in aluminum?”
“…”
“Sir Drake?”
Drake, who had frozen for a moment, now beamed and said, “Of course! Lads! We’ve hit the jackpot! Quickly, connect the slaves’ shackles…”
“Remove the shackles.”
“Uh… pardon? What will you do if they run away?”
“…”
When I said nothing, Francis Drake slowly began to read my expression. And when he seemed to realize that I had noticed him reading my expression, he glanced at the people next to us. And then, Drake closed his eyes as if in thought for a moment.
“…Aha.” He opened his eyes again and gave me a subtle smile. “I, Francis Drake, cannot honestly say that I have lived my life according to the word of the Lord… but I believe I understand Your Majesty’s will. You are a true Christian. I, too, in fact, have felt a deep disgust for the institution of slavery in my heart…”
I haven’t said anything yet. And weren’t you a slave trader? Be that as it may, he was ridiculously quick on the uptake.
“It’s on me! I will hand them over at half the price I was originally going to ask! How can one quibble over profit when doing the right thing! Hahahaha!”
…Wow, I was almost grateful for a second there. I thought it was a strange thing for a man who had been worrying about not having a place to sell them to say, but he said it so naturally that I was almost fooled. Well, it didn’t matter anyway.
“Y-You’re giving me this much? I’m sure I said I would only take half…!”
“Why are you so surprised? You are doing a good deed; I should help.”
At most, if I just give him a clump of aluminum foil and clips, he’ll be overjoyed. Drake now bowed to me with a smile that split his face. “Your Majesty! May you live a long and prosperous life! I hope that the friendship between England and Your Majesty will be eternal! Well then, I’ll be…”
“Wait.”
“…Yes?”
“What are you going to do now?”
“Um… well, I was originally planning to return to England. Piracy… no. Now that I have excellently completed the redistribution of resources, shouldn’t I return to my homeland and share this joy with Her Majesty the Queen?”
“And after that?”
“Hm? Don’t you know? I am a pirate.” Drake clapped his hands once and, with burning eyes, said to me, “The piracy begins again. Hehehe, I love this job so much.”
Thou shalt not kill, thou shalt not steal. Was he the type to talk about being a Christian just seconds after proudly declaring he would break two of the Ten Commandments?
“Then… as you’re pirating, just remember one thing.”
“Ah, of course. As long as it does not conflict with my oath of loyalty to my sovereign, Her Majesty Elizabeth, I will grant any request.”
“It is not a request. Rather, it is a proposal that will be beneficial to you.”
“What is it, Your Majesty? You pique my interest.”
“…”
Can I trust this man? He has the perfect disposition for fraud and extortion. …Ah. No. He’s already a man who runs around with an armed robbery gang. What’s more ridiculous than asking if I can trust a man like this?
This… is the Queen’s favorite? What kind of country is England, exactly?
Anyway. Now that I had confirmed that the slaves were being held captive, there was something I had to do as a matter of principle.
“…From now on, when you are plundering the Spanish.”
“When I am engaged in ‘combat’ with the Spanish.”
“…When you are engaged in combat, if you find any detained slaves, bring them here. I will compensate you as I have this time.”
At my words, Drake’s eyes widened again. He seemed to think for a moment… then he nodded his head vigorously and said, “Of course, Your Imperial Majesty. I will do so for you, and for the great cause of our Lord, who abhors slavery.”
I’m pretty sure ‘our Lord’ abhors piracy, too. …Well, that’s none of my business.
***
Francis Drake was known as the great friend and colleague of John Hawkins,² England’s first slave trader. Following his cousin, John Hawkins, from his early 20s, he went back and forth between the West Indies and West Africa, either capturing slaves himself or capturing Portuguese ships that had captured slaves. His successful career, which started like that, continued, and after 1569, he became a reliable money pot for Queen Elizabeth and was able to enjoy enormous honor.
The difference between him and other riff-raff pirates came from this. He, who had a natural talent for being a gangster, knew whose ‘turf’ he was on. His nose sensitively smelled the scent of power, and he knew who the most absolute ‘boss’ in this area was. So, instead of carousing with the vast profits amounting to the state’s annual budget for several years, he offered most of it to the Queen. He was sharp. An excellent survival instinct always flickered in his eyes and ears.
This was a proposal from an important ally who had dramatically improved England’s trade balance. A major customer who filled England’s royal coffers with all sorts of luxury goods and bought all sorts of luxury and essential goods like sugar, spices, and woolen fabrics from England. He had proposed a deal in exchange for the liberation of slaves. And… he knew very well what his cousin and renowned slave trader, John Hawkins, had been doing when he met his end recently.
He had gone to the ‘Saintess’s’ clinic, caused a ruck-us demanding medicine, and then was struck down by divine punishment and died. It was probably some kind of poison that had spread and killed him, but since people were spreading rumors like that, it was easier to just accept it as the truth. In other words. It was time to ‘cut his losses.’
‘How long has it been… since I myself engaged in the slave trade?’ It had been over 10, no, 20 years since he had personally bought and exported slaves, not like this time where slaves were just a side-product of a battle with the Spanish.
John Hawkins, who had engaged in the slave trade and even put a chained Moorish slave on his family crest, had died by divine punishment. And. A moneybags had appeared who would give him money if he freed slaves.
‘…What in the world is he? A spirit of the sea?’
He wasn’t just any moneybags. He was a moneybags who spoke Spanish, Portuguese, English, and Latin simultaneously. He had been so shocked that he had left quickly, but it was an experience he would never forget. A magician who performed unbelievable miracles? A mystery of the sea?
‘The sea truly is amazing! To have such a strange experience!’ Of course, Drake could accept it without much difficulty. He had already seen many miracles at sea. A talking seagull (it was a hallucination due to vitamin deficiency during a long voyage), or a mermaid (it was a dugong).
Thanks to such experiences, Drake was a sufficiently ‘superstitious’ man, as befitting a sailor, and he was able to weave his strange experience with the native emperor ‘Nemo’ into a page of his eventful adventures! In other words, what was important to the great captain Drake right now was not such things. He had never had a good experience after a long encounter with the ‘mysteries of the sea.’ (Of course. It is difficult to have a good experience in a mentally and physically weakened state due to vitamin and various other nutritional deficiencies.)
What was important to him right now was the deal. The deal. That’s right. From now on, he was not the great friend and colleague of John Hawkins, England’s first slave trader… or any such thing.
“My lads.”
“…”
“…”
“…”
“What does this look like to you?”
“Why are you asking such a thing when you haven’t even let us rest on land for a moment?”
“…There was a reason, so shut up and answer.”
“Ah, isn’t it aluminum?”
“No. This is the fruit of great freedom and the just reward that follows morality and ethics.”
From now on, he was the liberator of slaves, a friend of freedom and justice.
“We’re going for one more round. Set the target for the vicinity of Cuba.”
“Ah, understood!”
“If you see anyone who looks like a slave, escort them with the utmost courtesy! They are our new source of money!”
“Waaaaaaah!”
He was a friend of aluminum. And so, Drake once again set off on a journey toward the light and justice of the Lord. Any deaths that occurred in the process… let’s just say they were from natural causes.
***
We finished our very… strange meeting with Drake and returned to Chesapeake Bay. Everyone was dumbfounded by the bewildering experience, but for now, there was work to be done.
“What is your name?”
“…How do you… our language…? G-G-Good heavens!”
“No. That was my tribe’s language… Everyone from my tribe is dead, how?”
“Everyone, calm down. You are safe now.”
As I removed their shackles, all the slaves stirred, bowing their heads to me awkwardly. It seemed they thought I had newly bought them. “A-Are you, our new master?” someone asked in Spanish, and I answered him immediately.
“You have no masters now.”
At that, his face was filled with a complex mixture of the fear and awe that came from hearing multiple languages in his ears, and the joy that came from understanding the meaning of my words. “H-How…”
“Could you tell me where your homeland is?”
“…#$@#.” A language I couldn’t understand, and couldn’t properly pronounce, was heard. The Hangul patch installed in my head immediately translated it as ‘Sierra Leone.’³
When I opened the world map on my phone, I could immediately confirm the location of Sierra Leone. Sierra Leone is about 7,000 kilometers from here.
“Are you all from the same place?” At my words, most of them nodded. I said to Vicente, who was standing next to me, “How much longer until the Voyager is completed?” Voyager, the name of the second clipper ship we were building.
“Only a month or two left.”
“Good. We will drop them off in Africa on the Voyager.”
I read somewhere that the clipper ships in ‘ANNO DOMINI 1800’ originally transported ‘perishable cargo,’ and considering the era, it’s 100 percent certain that slaves were included in that. Whatever the case, it was a suitable ship to use while the Spanish were searching the Atlantic for English ships with fire in their eyes. Because it was fast. Now it would be used to take freed slaves back to Africa.
“For now… it means it’s still too much to look around this coast with the Voyager.”
“That’s right. To look around, we’ll need the Nautilus. Would you like to join us?”
I nodded at Vicente’s words. Hadn’t the English and Spanish fleets just clashed on a pretty large scale nearby? There might have been an impact on the surrounding area. There could have been shipwreck survivors. “Alright.”
And so, after finishing everything, we boarded the Nautilus and looked around the southern coast after the battle. And.
“…There should be a village around here.” Several villages were abandoned, empty. Tribes that had hidden in the forest, frightened by the roars of the night. Countless corpses and the wreckage of the battle that had washed up on the shore. The rotting limbs of the Spanish, the English, the natives, and the black slaves.
“…”
Drake was a cheerful man, but he was a man who led dozens of warships and thousands of soldiers. Our community was, at best, about 20,000 people, while they commanded armies of tens of thousands and populations of millions. Every time the giants fought a battle, thousands died and tens of thousands were stirred.
“Did Sir Drake say that the Spanish… were growing their Florida colony?”
“Yes. It seems they are trying to keep us in check.”
“The repercussions won’t reach us, will they?”
“Probably… not.”
We could only pray that we would be safe in between them.
***
The Council of the Indies, under the Spanish Empire, seriously considered the ‘disappearance’ of Vicente Gonzales.
“An epidemic broke out in the area and the natives attacked, wiping out a force of about 200 soldiers…”
“Thinking about it now, wasn’t it the work of that savage ‘Emperor’? Though he’s probably just a particularly strong Indio chief in the area.”
“So you’re saying that a local group, strong and skilled enough to crush a force of 4 warships and 200 soldiers, has joined hands with the English?”
“The population of the Virginia colony is now in the thousands. To bring them down, we would now have to dispatch a large force of at least 2,000, and at most 5,000 men.”
“In other words, we cannot bring them down.”
“…”
“…”
“…”
A perfect intermediate base had been created for the English, who clung to them as viciously as mosquitoes or crane flies. No, it was not just an intermediate base. It was a new territory, prosperous enough to fill the always-strapped English treasury and, beyond being self-sufficient, even export food to England. And considering the propaganda about ‘angels’ and what not, its political significance was even greater.
For the Spanish colonial authorities, a vexing threat had emerged.
“For now… shouldn’t we protect our Florida colony first? I feel that we have become too vulnerable after abandoning Santa Elena and other areas.”
“That’s right. We must first strengthen the defenses of the Santa Elena area and expand the colony near Florida. Further retreat will only create a strategic threat.”
And so, the Spanish colonial authorities made a decision. “We will expand the colony.”
And so, the government of the Spanish West Indies began to launch a colonial expansion movement. They supplied weapons and resources to their allied tribes in San Agustín and the surrounding areas and instigated the conquest of new lands.
The result was clear. The Apalachee, allies of the Spanish, drove out the Guale to their north. The displaced Guale, in turn, plundered the Muscogee. The Muscogee declared war on the Catawba. The Catawba were pushed north and threatened the Tuscarora.
The major and minor moves made by the Spanish caused a domino effect, toppling the native societies in the areas that would in the distant future be called Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, and North Carolina.⁴ An unprecedented drought continued. In the midst of it, Spain’s ‘light preparations’ had pushed them not to the warmer south, but to the harsher and colder north.
Thousands, tens of thousands who had lost their homes and homelands wandered without a destination, weapons in hand. Their eyes were now filled with chaos, anger, and sorrow.
“G-Good heavens, why have they suddenly moved north…”
“Where must we go now?”
At that, the chiefs and great chiefs of various tribes recalled the rumors they had heard. “In the north… there is a very powerful and wealthy great chief.”
“He never lets a visiting guest go hungry, and never turns away one who comes for shelter.”
“We cannot win a fight against him, but we can take refuge with him.”
“Therefore, we go there.”
To Croatoan. And to Chesapeake.