How to Survive in the Roanoke Colony

So they actively participate in public projects or various religious events that offer even a little honor, trying somehow to elevate their names and do things that can earn respect in the community.

They want to do 'only' those things.

Oh no, oh...

What about our community's economy?

What should we do in the future? If the population grows to hundreds of thousands and remains in this state, it will be really problematic.

Anyway.

Today was the day for the regular assembly meeting. I thought I should mention this issue during the opening remarks they asked me to give.

I stayed up all night preparing a simple speech. The content was brief, but it contained all the economic common sense that an average Japanese citizen would know, gathered from my limited economic knowledge.

I looked over the speech content, made final edits, then walked to the assembly building for the meeting. When the main gate opened, it was already bustling inside.

The speaker position rotated among the council members, so Eleanor sat in the speaker's seat, with other apostles sitting on either side...

...Hmm?

"Eleanor? Walter's seat is empty."

"Ah, Sir Raleigh said he'd be a little late. He received a sudden summons from Her Majesty the Queen."

"Hmm? The Queen must know today is the regular assembly meeting day?"

Something seems strange.

Anyway, Raleigh's seat remained empty until almost all members had entered. People's gazes shifted from Raleigh's empty seat to Eleanor and me.

Eleanor cleared her throat and declared the opening of the session, then I stood up from my seat to distribute the documents I had prepared for my speech...

Thud.

"..."

"..."

"..."

"...Ah! I'm not too late. That was close."

"Walter?"

"Ah... Mr. Nemo."

It was Walter Raleigh who urgently opened the door and entered.

He walked with eyes that seemed more unstable than usual.

Not to his seat, but straight toward me.

"...Walter?"

And he bent down and whispered in my ear.

"Florida has..."

"..."

"...it has happened."

I froze momentarily at his words.

A mixture of murmurs and strange silence swirled among the members. They all became agitated seeing my hardened face, but I couldn't easily soften my expression.

I... put down the documents I was holding. The materials prepared all day by someone ignorant of economics, searching through what little educational comics I had, but they weren't important.

None of it was important at this moment.

After fumbling awkwardly for a moment due to tension... I opened my mouth with difficulty.

"Everyone, please stand."

The members all stood up, puzzled. The other apostles bowed their heads and asked Raleigh: Baron? What's happening? Did you hear something from the Queen of England? Come to think of it, she called for you even though today is the meeting day. Was there something...

Dismissing all the commotion, I said:

"Let us pray."

Hiding the trembling of my hands, I clasped them together and applied pressure.

"For our brothers and sisters in Florida. For their lives, for their peace, and... for their..."

Good heavens.

I felt a chill running down my spine.

==

There were two main reasons why Spain's colonies initially formed the infamous quasi-manorial encomienda system.

First, there were already vast numbers of indigenous people living in Spanish Central and South America and Mexico.

Second, more fundamentally, the conquistadors who formed the Spanish colonies wanted to secure their own "domains" and become nobles.

The ambition to become nobility, the desire to secure one's own "domain" and "subjects" to act as a small monarch within it.

It was natural to have such ambitions in Spain, where blood nobles flourished, the bourgeoisie couldn't gain power, and local strongmen maintained powerful influence.

And such ambitions inflated endlessly in places where Spanish authorities had diminished control.

The terrible massacres and unbelievable licentiousness recorded by missionaries in the Brazilian jungles of original history must have been due to this.

And.

This place was no different.

Spanish people were transplanted along with numerous African slaves under the ambitious plan to control Florida, to check Virginia in the north.

But their numbers were only a few thousand at most. Even counting tens of thousands of slaves, it was far from enough.

Outside cities like Santa Elena, Santa Lucia, and San Jose, it was a lawless zone with just a few scattered farms.

In that lawless zone, the only law was violence, and what the law protected was the desire to dominate.

The slaves here, who had lived in a world existing solely to satisfy someone's disgusting desire to dominate, knew well.

There was no option to escape.

The principle of the Spanish in Florida and their allied natives was stern and concise: Any African wandering without a master is killed, regardless of reason.

Just like killing a stray dog.

Because of this, a seemingly sparse but deadly surveillance network was created.

Wherever you go, the moment you encounter a non-slave, death awaits. Moreover, horrific torture will follow to set an example.

If you manage to escape to Santa Lucia, the most orderly place in southern Florida, at least a merciful hanging awaits.

All this time, it was the master who guaranteed their status and held the power of life and death over them.

That master had just died.

Moreover, that master had just reported them for treason, so soldiers would arrive soon. Soldiers in armor, equipped with guns and steel swords, fully armed, would kill them.

They looked at their master, crying. Their master with his head split open, the man who had been like a god to them until just a few minutes ago.

Although they had suffered enough to die because of him, this terrible colony had made slaves unable to survive without depending on him.

They cried... screaming madly at the approaching death, half-crazed...

They brutally butchered the master's corpse.

They trampled his face with their feet. They strangled his neck with their hands. They beat various parts with their fists.

They committed violence they would never have dared while he was alive.

In that violence, they briefly felt what it meant to be alive.

And when two or three Spanish soldiers arrived.

Without realizing it, they grabbed all the household items and poured out that violence again. The Spanish soldiers, surprised by the corpses in the house, were slow to respond in the face of the unexpected collective resistance.

More gunfire.

The sound of knives and pitchforks clashing.

Screams.

The sound of foaming at the mouth.

And...

"..."

The last survivor was not Spanish.

Those who survived realized, covered in blood, what they had just done.

About twenty Africans had died, the Spanish master and his cousin had died, and a couple of Spanish soldiers had died.

And they had survived.

With the blood of all the dead on their hands.

The blood of slaves, masters, and soldiers mixed together.

They were now rebels. They had become those who would be followed by a fate of death wherever they went within the reach of the empire.

There was no way for them to survive. Now they had to choose how to die.

With blood all over their bodies, holding the weapons that the masters and Spanish soldiers had carried, they moved.

To another place.

Gunshots rang out and flames rose there too.

The flames spread more and more.

They wandered, covered in blood. They kept wandering.

Blood is the most precious liquid in the world. Human blood is the most sacred among them.

A treasure sufficient to be offered as a sacrifice for something great.

They threw the most precious treasure in the world onto the altar without reservation.

Not just that of their "masters" whom they hated so much, but also their own.

They no longer particularly wanted to live.

After all, their previous life was not a life at all.