Black Númenóreans

A people of Númenórean origin, who returned to Middle-earth in the Second Age to follow Sauron. They survived to the end of the Third Age, during which they were often at war with Gondor.

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The only statement dating the emergence of the Black Númenoreans is a rather vague. They are said to have settled in Middle-earth 'during the years of Sauron's domination'Second Age - II 1800 is probably the earliest possible date for the Black Númenóreans to have appeared: 'The shadow falls on Númenor'.

We're told that the Black Númenóreans emerged from the party of the King's Men. This was about the same time that the Nazgûl appeared, and as three of those were Númenóreans, we can be sure that Sauron had already ensnared at least some of that race.

Sauron began the seduction of the Númenóreans in about II 1800, and had at least some Númenórean servants and followers soon after that date. However, the Black Númenóreans seem not to have emerged as a separate people until some centuries later.

The Black Númenóreans were not destroyed in the War of the Last Alliance, but after their master's fall, they rapidly diminished and were absorbed into the native peoples of Middle-earth. Nonetheless, even at the end of the Third Age, three thousand years later, there were some who claimed descent from the Black Númenóreans. The emissary known as the Mouth of Sauron was one of these.

Origins

As their power and knowledge had grown throughout the course of that Age, all the Númenóreans had become increasingly preoccupied with the limits placed on their contentment—and eventually their power—by mortality, the purpose of which they began to question;

But the fear of death grew ever darker upon them, and they delayed it by all means that they could; and they began to build great houses for their dead, while their wise men laboured unceasingly to discover if they might the secret of recalling life...

This growing wish to escape death, known as 'the doom of Men', also made most of the Númenóreans envious of the immortal Elves, or Eldar, who they had come to physically resemble as part of their reward from God (Ilúvatar) for having been their allies. The Eldar sought ever to remind the men of Númenor however, that death was a gift from God to all men, and to lose faith in Ilúvatar would be heretical.

Nevertheless, after S.A 2221, when Tar-Ancalimon became King of Númenor;

...the people of Númenor became divided. On the one hand was the greater party, and they were called the King's Men, and they grew proud and were estranged from the Valar and the Eldar.

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The 'King's Men' therefore became increasingly predisposed to the corruption of Sauron, who, after having arrived in Númenor;

...naturally had the One Ring, and so very soon dominated the minds and wills of most of the Númenóreans.

Eventually, in Númenor's last years, its hugely powerful but elderly King Ar-Pharazôn, who had become "frightened of old age" , was persuaded by Sauron that Ilúvatar was a lie invented by the Valar, and seduced him;

...back to the worship of the Dark, and of Melkor the Lord thereof, at first in secret, but ere long openly and in the face of his people.

Within Númenor, the majority immediately followed suit, and this worship quickly passed across the ocean to most of Númenor's colonies in Middle-earth;

..for in the days of the sojourn of Sauron in that land the hearts of well nigh all its people had been turned towards darkness. Therefore many of those who sailed east in that time and made fortresses and dwellings upon the coasts were already bent to his will...

Black Númenórean religion

The Men of Númenor were settled far and wide on the shores and seaward regions of the Great Lands, but for the most part they fell into evils and follies. Many became enamoured of the Darkness and the black arts... ('The Window on the West' ~ The Lord of the Rings)

These sacrilegious 'black arts', which arose as a consequence of their worship of 'The Dark' and Melkor, marked the final, irrevocable division between the 'King's Men' and the minority known as the 'Faithful' Númenóreans, or the 'Elendili', who kept to their old faith in Ilúvatar. They were also presumably the earliest religious rituals of those who became known afterwards as Black Númenóreans, along with a disbelief in Ilúvatar.

After their founding, the new Númenórean kingdoms of the Elendili saw their southern counterparts as renegades because of their beliefs, and coined the name that was used ever afterwards for them;

...the Black Númenóreans; for they established their dwellings in Middle-earth during the years of Sauron's domination, and they worshipped him, being enamoured of evil knowledge. ('The Black Gate Opens' ~ The Lord of the Rings)

Enemies of the Black Númenóreans

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Those few Númenóreans who had never disavowed the Eldar, and had always remained true to their belief in Ilúvatar, also survived the destruction of their homeland, and their Lord Elendil, a royal Númenórean, immediately established suzerainty over the most northerly Númenórean colonies, naming them Gondor and Arnor. To these colonies previously had come

...only the Faithful of Númenor, and many therefore of the folk of the coastlands in that region were in whole or in part akin to the Elf-friends and the people of Elendil... ('Of the Rings of Power and the Third Age' ~ The Silmarillion)

Throughout their existance, the Black Númenóreans held a low opinion of 'The Faithful' and their descendants, as

...they inherited without lessening their hatred of Gondor.

Umbar

...because of the power of Gil-galad these renegades, lords both mighty and evil, for the most part took up their abodes in the southlands far away.

For many centuries after the Downfall, descendants of the 'King's Men' held onto the southernmost of what had been Númenor's colonies in Middle-earth, the nearest of these new realms-in-exile to northwestern Middle-earth being Umbar, where a Black Númenórean aristocracy survived for over a thousand years after Númenor's fall, maintaining much influence in Haradwaith. As late as 1015 T.A., for example, even after being exiled from their homeland for nearly a century,

...the Men of Harad, led by the lords that had been driven from Umbar, came up with great power against that stronghold...

Servitude to Sauron

Following Sauron's physical destruction during the drowning of Númenór (or possibly after the war of the Last Alliance), it seems the Black Númenórean realms enjoyed a high degree of independence from him: in Umbar for example the giant white pillar commemorating the Dark Lord's humiliation by Ar-Pharazôn was still standing when the Black Númenóreans left in T.A 1050, over a thousand years after its erection by their ancestors (in fact, the monument was not destroyed until T.A 2951).

Famous Black Númenóreans

Two early Black Númenórean lords are named from the time of the late Second Age: Herumor and Fuinur. Like all Black Númenóreans and 'King's Men' before them, Herumor and Fuinur desired power over men of other, lesser races, and they "rose to (great) power amongst the Haradrim", the peoples neighbouring Umbar. Their fate is unknown, but they perhaps shared Sauron's defeat at the hands of the Last Alliance of Elves and Men. Another possibility suggested by many is that these two were ensnared by Sauron's Rings of Power and so became Ringwraiths.[citation needed]

It is known for certain that three powerful lords of Númenor did become Ringwraiths: "(...)those who used the Nine Rings became mighty in their day, kings, sorcerers, and warriors of old," and so they would be among the first Black Númenóreans, possibly synonymous with Herumor and Fuinor. In one of his letters Tolkien wrote that the witch-king of Angmar, the greatest of the Ringwraiths, was probably of Númenorean descent.

In another letter, Tolkien wrote that Queen Berúthiel, wife of Gondor's King Tarannon Falastur (9th century, T.A.), was a Black Númenórean, from a Black Númenórean realm he describes as "the inland city" somewhere south of Umbar. This was a loveless union, and was presumably a political accommodation. That such arrangements were possible implies the existence at that time of more Gondor-friendly Black Númenóreans than the much later Mouth of Sauron.

In later centuries

The triumph of the Last Alliance at the end of the Second Age marked the long decline of the Black Númenórean race:

After the fall of Sauron their race swiftly dwindled or became merged with the Men of Middle-earth...

This was at least partly due to the fact that : ...some were given over wholly to idleness and ease, and some fought amongst themselves, until they became conquered in their weakness by the wild men.

The Black Númenóreans faded into obscurity after their defeat in Umbar by Ciryaher in T.A 1050, although a population of sorts certainly survived somewhere as a distinct people at least until the end of the Third Age: The Mouth of Sauron, who mocked the army of King Elessar in front of the Morannon, was a Black Númenórean "renegade", which is presumably the term used by the Free Peoples of that time to describe all folk of similar ancestry.

The Black Númenóreans did not use Westron, but probably retained their old tongue Adûnaic, speaking a dialect of it.