Seeking the Wayward Children of Numenor - Page 6
© Michael Martinez
If the early colonists were the more adventurous Numenoreans, there may have been few women among them who felt inclined to go to Middle-earth. Perhaps many of these women only went reluctantly, and insisted on settling in lands near the Eldar so they could at least find some comfort in the strange and wild mortal lands. The difference between the colonists of Pelargir and the colonists of Eriador, therefore, may also be that the early families of the north were more pure-blooded than the early families of the south. So the families of mixed descent may have been more numerous in the south.
But with the division of Numenor and the emigration of the Faithful to Middle-earth a profound and radical change in settlement patterns must have emerged. Now whole families and households were sailing over Sea to the mortal lands, and most of them were going to Pelargir. They needed land but they also needed to know they would not be harassed, either by Sauron, the wild men of the Dales, or the Kings Men. Pelargir was a visible source of Numenorean power. There was really no equivalent to it in the north. A strong garrison there, loyal to the Kings of Numenor but nonetheless friendly to the Eldar would ensure that the political strife didn't spill over into the colonies.
The ultimate result of the gradual shift in settlement patterns, favoring the southern colonization over the northern, would have been a fundamental division in philosophical outlooks. The northern Dunedain must have been more stable and therefore more conservative in outlook than the Dunedain of Pelargir and its dependent settlements. Dunedain in the south would have been more prone to open new lands. Dunedain in the north would have been more likely to live in peace with their neighbors. Hence, a Bree could rise up in the heart of Dunadan territory, where the majority of the people were Gwathuirim, but the people of the southern lands were mostly of Dunadan or mixed descent because they were constantly at war with the Gwathuirim, who had been driven back to the mountains.
The arrival of Elendil's ships in Middle-earth did not alter these fundamental differences. Elendil reached Lindon with four ships of Numenoreans. At most they could have founded one small city by themselves. More likely they spread out through Eriador. Probably a majority of these "New Numenoreans" settled with Elendil by Lake Evendim at Annuminas, and some would have led the colonists who garrisoned Fornost Erain in the North Downs. But these cities must have been populated mostly by people recruited from the local populations, which had been established two thousand years before and had been recolonizing Eriador for more than fifteen hundred years since the War of the Elves and Sauron.
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