Slave trade.
From what I’d seen in the Immortal Order’s catalog, the slave trade of this sixteenth-century era was a field led by Spain and Portugal.
Naturally so. They were the only two with colonies where they could take slaves and put them to work.
It might be different after the seventeenth century, when England, France, the Netherlands, and others began advancing overseas in earnest, but right now, if you were talking about colonial empires, those two were all there was.
The Spaniards and Portuguese made use of large numbers of slaves to extract profit from the new territories that had expanded so rapidly.
However, the indigenous population was rapidly declining due to epidemics such as smallpox, and later, the enslavement of natives would be banned altogether. So they came to use slaves from elsewhere—people relatively sturdier against disease and from a comparatively closer source.
The slaves of West Africa.
When various kingdoms and tribes invaded others and abducted people, the American colonies purchased the slaves produced that way.
And once the gold, silver, and various cash crops produced by slave labor were shipped back to the homeland, those luxury goods were then paid out to Africa’s “business partners” and “slave producers” in exchange for more slaves.
This was the infamous “Atlantic triangular trade.”
And Drake had raided the ships and colonies involved in that trade.
He had slaughtered people indiscriminately, burned down houses and fences, then swept up every last bit of treasure and property left behind.
“But, no… think about it. What would we even use slaves for?”
That was how he had ended up with the Black slaves in his possession.
“…I heard you have a history of working as a slave trader.”
“Well, yes. But that was before the war with Spain, wasn’t it? What am I supposed to do with these slaves?
Am I to keep them with me? If I feed, house, and clothe people I have no particular use for, all just so I can swagger around a bit, wouldn’t the tail end up wagging the dog?
Then should I sell them? Where? The English would refuse to buy slaves for precisely the same reasons I would, and that leaves the Spaniards…”
You took them from those very Spaniards.
And since they happened to be at war, he could not sell them to them all the more.
“It’s not as if I’m running a charity, so I can’t take them all the way back to their homes in West Africa and set them free, can I? I’d go bankrupt.”
In truth, I doubted a man that conscientious would ever decide to make a living through piracy in the first place.
After massacring Spaniards without hesitation right up until moments ago, saying, “Ah! They’re slaves! I must set them free!” would be less a matter of kindness and more like something in him was broken.
“But! Like this! To think England’s ally and colony would spring up so close to my ‘place of business’!”
…Did he just call the sea where he committed piracy his place of business?
“At any rate, hasn’t this worked out nicely? If Your Majesty purchases them, I don’t know how many you’ll buy…”
Holding back a sigh, I said,
“All of them.”
“Uh… pardon?”
“I will purchase all of them.”
“…”
Drake’s mouth fell open for a moment as if he were utterly dumbfounded, and he blinked repeatedly… then his face soon brightened.
“A-Ahahaha! It seems you needed even more hands than I thought! Splendid! The price is a little steep, though…”
“Would it be acceptable if I paid entirely in aluminum?”
“…”
“Sir Drake?”
Drake, whose body had stiffened for a moment, now broke into a broad grin.
“Of course! Boys! We’ve struck gold! Hurry and connect the slaves’ shackles first…”
“Remove the shackles.”
“Uh… pardon? What will you do if they run away?”
“…”
When I said nothing, Francis Drake began furtively watching my expression.
When it seemed he realized I had noticed him doing so, he glanced at the people beside him.
Then Drake closed his eyes for a moment, as if thinking.
“…Aha.”
He opened his eyes again and gave me a subtle smile.
“…I, Francis Drake, cannot honestly say I have lived my whole life according to the word of the Lord… but I believe I roughly understand Your Majesty’s will.
Your Majesty is a true Christian. In truth, I too have always felt a deep revulsion in my heart toward the institution of slavery…”
I haven’t said anything yet. And weren’t you a slave trader?
Still, damn if he isn’t quick on the uptake.
“…I’m in the mood! I’ll hand them over to you for half the price I originally intended to ask! When doing the right thing, how can one sit around calculating profit? Hahahaha!”
…Whoa, I almost thanked him without realizing it.
For someone who had just been fretting because he had nowhere to sell them, it was an absurd thing to say, but he was so natural that I nearly fell for it.
Well, it did not matter either way.
“Y-You mean to give me this much? I distinctly said I’d only take half…”
“Why are you so surprised? You’re doing a good deed, so I ought to help.”
After all, if I handed him a few wads of aluminum foil and paper clips, he would be delighted.
Drake now smiled so widely his mouth nearly split and bowed his head to me.
“Your Majesty! May you live long and prosper! I only hope the friendship between England and Your Majesty lasts forever! Then I shall take my leave…”
“Wait.”
“…Yes?”
“What do you intend to do now?”
“Um… well, I was originally planning to return to England. Since I have splendidly completed my piracy… no, my redistribution of resources, shouldn’t I return to my homeland and share the joy with Her Majesty the Queen?”
“And after that?”
“Hm? Do you not know? I am a pirate.”
Drake clapped his hands once, his blazing eyes shining as he spoke to me.
“The piracy begins again, of course. Hehehe, I enjoy this work far too much.”
No murder, no theft.
For someone brazenly declaring he would violate two of the Ten Commandments already, he had been going on about being a Christian just seconds ago.
“Then… since you’ll be committing piracy anyway, remember one thing.”
“Ah, of course. So long as it does not conflict with my oath of loyalty to my liege, Her Majesty Elizabeth, I shall grant any request.”
“It is not a request. Rather, it is a proposal that will benefit you.”
“What is it, Your Majesty? You have piqued my interest.”
“…”
Can I trust this man? At first impression, he seems optimized for fraud and extortion.
…Ah. No, that’s not it. He’s already gathered an armed band of robbers and is rampaging all over the place. What could be more ridiculous than asking whether I can trust such a man?
This thing is… the queen’s favorite?
What sort of country is England, exactly?
At any rate.
Now that I had confirmed slaves were being dragged around, there was something I had to do as a matter of principle.
“…In the future, while plundering Spaniards.”
“While engaging Spaniards in ‘battle.’”
“…While engaging them in battle, if you discover detained slaves, bring them here. I will compensate you as I did this time.”
At my words, Drake’s eyes widened again.
He seemed to ponder for a moment… then nodded vigorously and said,
“Of course, Your Imperial Majesty. I shall do so for you, and for the cause of our Lord, who despises slavery.”
I’m pretty sure “our Lord” despises piracy too.
…Not that it’s any of my concern.
***
Francis Drake.
He is known as the excellent friend and colleague of John Hawkins, England’s first slave trader.
Following his older cousin John Hawkins, he had traveled between the West Indies and West Africa since his early twenties, personally capturing slaves or seizing Portuguese ships that had captured slaves.
His successful career, which began that way, continued thereafter, and after 1569 he became Queen Elizabeth’s reliable money chest and enjoyed tremendous honor.
This was where the difference between him and other pirate riffraff emerged.
Possessing an innate gangster temperament, he knew whose “turf” he was in. His nose was sensitive to the scent of power, and he knew who the most absolute “boss” in this area was.
And so, instead of reveling in the vast profits amounting to several years of the national budget, he offered most of it to the queen.
He had tact.
An outstanding survival instinct always flickered before his eyes and ears.
It was a proposal from an important ally who had dramatically improved England’s trade balance.
A major customer who filled England’s royal treasury with all manner of luxury goods, and who bought up sugar, spices, woolens, and every kind of luxury and necessity from England.
That person had proposed a deal in exchange for freeing slaves.
Moreover…
He knew very well what his relative and renowned slave trader, Sir John Hawkins, had recently done before meeting his end.
He had gone to the “Saintess’s” clinic and caused a scene demanding medicine, only to be struck down by divine punishment.
He had probably died after catching some kind of poison, but since people were more or less spreading that rumor, it was easier on the mind to accept it as truth.
In other words.
The time had come to cut ties.
‘How long has it been… since I directly engaged in the slave trade?’
Not slaves coming along as a side product during battle with the Spanish, as had happened this time, but the work of directly purchasing and exporting slaves—ten years, no, more than twenty had passed since he had done that.
John Hawkins, who had engaged in the slave trade and even placed a shackled Moorish slave on his family crest, had died by divine punishment.
And.
A patron who would pay money if slaves were freed had appeared.
‘…What on earth is he? A spirit of the sea?’
He was not just any patron.
He was a patron who spoke Spanish, Portuguese, English, and Latin all at the same time. Drake had fled quickly out of sheer shock, but it was an experience he would never forget.
A being who performed impossible miracles… a magician? A mystery of the sea?
‘As expected, the sea is wondrous! To think I would have such a strange experience!’
Of course, Drake had no great difficulty accepting it. He had already seen countless miracles at sea.
Seagulls that spoke human words (hallucinations caused by vitamin deficiency during long voyages), mermaids (dugongs), and the like.
Thanks to such experiences, Drake was, like a true sailor, sufficiently “superstitious,” and his strange experience with the native emperor “Nemo” could likewise be absorbed as just another page in his turbulent adventures!
In other words, what mattered to the great Captain Drake right now was not such things.
To begin with, no one had ever met the “mysteries of the sea” for a long time and come out looking well. (Naturally so. It is difficult to look well when physically and mentally weakened by a lack of vitamins and various nutrients.)
What mattered to him now was the deal.
The deal.
That was right.
From now on, he was no longer the excellent friend and colleague of John Hawkins, England’s first slave trader… or any such thing.
“Gentlemen.”
“…”
“…”
“…”
“What does this look like to you?”
“You don’t even let us rest on land once, and now you ask something like that?”
“…There was a reason for it, so shut up and answer.”
“I-Isn’t it aluminum?”
“No.
This is the fruit of great freedom, and the just reward that follows morality and ethics.”
He was now the liberator of slaves, the friend of freedom and justice.
“We go for one more haul. Set our target near Cuba.”
“U-Understood!”
“If there are people who appear to be slaves, treat them all with courtesy! They are our new source of funds!”
“Wooooaaaah!”
He was a friend of aluminum.
And so Drake once again set out on a journey toward the Lord’s light and justice.
As for the deaths that occurred along the way…
Let us call them natural causes.
***
After our extremely… peculiar meeting with Drake, we returned to Chesapeake Bay. Everyone was still dumbfounded after that bewildering experience, but for now, there was work to do.
“What is your name?”
“…How do you know our language…? M-My, my God!”
“No. That was my tribe’s tongue… Our tribe’s people are all dead, so how?”
“Everyone, please calm down. You are safe now.”
When their shackles were removed, all the slaves stirred and gave me awkward bows. It seemed they roughly assumed I had become their new owner.
“A-Are you our new master?”
Someone asked in Spanish, and I answered him at once.
“You have no master now.”
At that, his face filled with a complex mixture of fear and awe from hearing multiple languages ringing in his ears, and joy 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 even pronounce properly, reached my ears. The Korean patch installed in my head soon translated the word as “Sierra Leone.”
When I opened the world map on my phone, I was soon able to confirm where Sierra Leone was. It was about seven thousand kilometers from here.
“Did all of you come from the same place?”
At my words, most of them nodded. I spoke to Vicente, who was beside me.
“How much longer until the Voyager is complete?”
The Voyager, the name of the second clipper ship we were building.
“Only another month or two.”
“Good. We’ll use the Voyager to take them back to Africa.”
From what I’d read in ANNO DOMINI 1800, clipper ships originally carried “perishable cargo,” and considering the era, slaves must have been included in that one hundred percent.
Whatever the case, it was the right kind of ship to use while Spain was prowling the Atlantic with its eyes peeled for English vessels. It was fast.
Though now its purpose would be to escort freed slaves back to Africa.
“For now… that means it’s still too much to use the Voyager to survey this coastline.”
“That is correct. If we are to examine the surroundings, we will need the Nautilus. Would you perhaps come along?”
I nodded at Vicente’s words. Hadn’t the English and Spanish fleets just clashed nearby on a fairly large scale? There might have been some effect on the surrounding area. There might even be shipwreck survivors.
“Good.”
With everything settled, we boarded the Nautilus and surveyed the southern coast after the battle.
And then.
“…Normally, by the time we reached this area, we should be able to see a village.”
Several villages had been abandoned, left empty.
Tribes who had fled into the forest in fear of the thunderous roars of the night before.
Countless corpses and the wreckage of battle washed ashore.
The rotting limbs of Spaniards, Englishmen, natives, and Black slaves.
“…”
Drake was a pleasant man, but he was also someone who commanded dozens of warships and thousands of soldiers.
Our community now numbered, at most, around twenty thousand people, while they commanded armies of tens of thousands and millions of subjects.
Each time giants fought a single battle, thousands died and tens of thousands were thrown into turmoil.
“Sir Drake said that the Spaniards… were expanding the Florida colony?”
“Yes. It seems they intend to keep us in check.”
“The aftereffects won’t reach us, will they?”
“Most likely… they will not.”
All we could do was pray that we would be safe between them.
***
The Council of the Indies under the Spanish Empire gave serious consideration to the “disappearance” of Vicente González.
“An epidemic broke out locally, and the natives attacked, resulting in the annihilation of a force of around two hundred men…”
“Now that I think about it, wasn’t it the doing of that savage ‘emperor’? Though at best, he would be nothing more than an especially powerful Indio chieftain in the region.”
“Then does that not mean a local group strong and capable enough to crush four warships and a force of two hundred soldiers has joined hands with England?”
“The population of the Virginia colony now numbers in the thousands. To bring them down, we would now have to dispatch a large force of at least two thousand, perhaps as many as five thousand men.”
“In other words, you are saying they cannot be brought down.”
“…”
“…”
“…”
A perfect way station had appeared for the English, who clung to them viciously like swarms of mosquitoes or midges.
No, it was not merely a way station. It was a new territory prosperous enough to fill England’s ever-strained treasury, to surpass self-sufficiency and even export food back to England. Moreover, considering all that propaganda about “angels” and the like, its political significance was even greater.
From the perspective of the Spanish colonial authorities, an irritating threat had arrived.
“For now… should we not protect our Florida colony first? Ever since we abandoned Santa Elena and various other regions, I cannot help but think we have become far too vulnerable.”
“Indeed. We must first strengthen the defenses around Santa Elena and expand the colonies near Florida. Any further retreat will only create a strategic threat.”
And so, the Spanish colonial authorities made their decision.
“We will expand the colonies.”
Thus, the government of the Spanish West Indies began a movement of colonial expansion.
They supplied weapons and resources to San Agustín and the allied tribes in its vicinity, inciting them to conquer new lands.
The result was clear.
Spain’s allies, the Apalachee, drove out the Guale to the north.
The displaced Guale then raided the Muscogee.
The Muscogee declared war on the Catawba.
The Catawba were pushed north and threatened the Tuscarora.
The various large and small moves Spain had made toppled the native societies of the regions that, in the distant future, would be called Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, and North Carolina, like falling dominoes.
An unprecedented drought continued. Amid it, Spain’s “light preparations” forced them to move not toward the warmer south, but toward the harsher and colder north.
Thousands, tens of thousands who had lost their homes and homelands wandered aimlessly with weapons in hand. Before long, their eyes were filled with confusion, anger, and sorrow.
“G-God above, why have they suddenly come north…”
“Where are we supposed to go now?”
Then the chiefs and great chiefs of various tribes recalled the rumors they had heard until now.
“To the north… there is a very powerful and wealthy great chief.”
“They say he never lets a guest who comes to him go hungry, and never turns away those who seek refuge with him.”
“We cannot defeat him in battle, but we can entrust ourselves to him.”
“And so, we will go there.”
To Croatoan.
And to the Chesapeake.