norrinradd asked me to post in the thread, so out of respect for him, I will.
“
Easterlings” seems to be a phrase applied to anyone with whom the Dúnedain had or maintained contact across the
plains north of
Mordor. They weren’t related to the Dúnedain, so that distinguished them from the
Corsairs of Umbar, who were
Black Númenóreans (
Kings’
Men of the
Second Age) in their origins later joined by rebels from
Gondor, or the various people of
Harad south of
Umbar, who were also Black
Númenórean in origin.
Faramir told
Frodo that the Dúnedain of Gondor divided Men into the High Men, the Dúnedain themselves, the Middle Men, like the
Rohirrim and their northern kin (such as the people of
Dale or Vales of
Anduin), and the Men of Darkness, allies of
Sauron. The Black Númenóreans were, like the Men of Gondor, somewhere between High and Middle, but the Black Númenóreans were Men of Darkness because of their fealty to Sauron and enmity with Gondor. The unrelated Easterlings they considered Men of Darkness.
Were the “Easterlings” of
The Silmarillion the same as the “Easterlings” of
LotR? Most of the Men who participated in the
War of Wrath were killed: the
Edain (and
Drúedain) ancestors of the Dúnedain were few in number, and they were on the winning side. The “Easterlings” of
The Silmarillion fought on both sides: the people of Bór remained faithful to the Eldar and Edain, while the people of Ulfang sided with
Morgoth. But
Silmarillion does say that many Easterlings fled the
Nirnaeth Arnoediad and returned over the
Blue Mountains, so I guess these could be the ancestors of some Third Age Easterlings.
The War of Wrath was a battle fought with
armies of “gods” (angelic and demonic powers),
Elves,
Orcs, and Men. The Orcs were mostly slaughtered, and so, I expect, were most of the Men. Had there been any survivors of Bór’s folk, they would also have been invited to
Númenor, for they were faithful allies of the Elves and Edain; but the tale seems to indicate that none remained. The Drúedain are specifically mentioned as surviving as only a few families that immigrated to Númenor: I think that since they were specifically mentioned, and it is specifically mentioned that survivors of the Haleth’s folk (the Second House of the Edain) were few in number, there were no survivors of Bór’s folk. Ulfang’s folk, if I remember correctly, were mostly moved to Hithlum, which sank beneath the waves in the ruin of
Beleriand: I suppose there might have been survivors, but none are mentioned.
Let’s put the question another way and consider how we might answer it: Are the
Dunlendings of the late Third Age members of the Second House of the Edain? Are the Rohirrim members of the Third House? “No” in both instances: they are akin to the Edain in their origins, but they are definitely not the same people as their ancient kinsmen. The same is true of the Men of the Vales of Anduin and the Men of Dale: akin, but not the same. The Bree-folk always held that they were not Dúnedain. However, if we ask, are the Drúedain same? then our answer is a little different: Yes, I think some are. For one thing, some of the Drúedain survivors settled in the
White Mountains (
Unfinished Tales, “Drúedain”), others went to Númenor. The Númenórean Drúedain begged Tar-Aldarion not to sail to
Middle-earth, and after that slowly returned to Middle-earth until the few remaining left soon after Sauron arrived. I suspect the ancestors of
Ghân-buri-Ghân are among these emigrants who returned from Númenor, and that at first, the Kings and Dúnedain of Gondor recognized them as descendents of their
First Age allies and perhaps even fellow
Númenóreans, though that memory seems to have waned in
the Third Age.
The Easterlings of the middle to late Third Age do recall the waves of nomadic people that ventured into Europe, raided, and many settled. The Wainriders and Balchoth of the Third Age seem to me to be two different groups of people, as different say as Turks and Huns (Magyars), but both “Easterlings” because both came from beyond the
Sea of Rhûn. For example, to older Southerners in the United States, anyone who comes from a state that remained in the Union during the Civil War is a “Yankee”, whether he’s from New England, New York, Ohio, Iowa or Minnesota, even if his family immigrated in the twentieth century, long after the Civil War ended; but to folk in Colombia or Mexico, anyone from the United States is a
yanqui, even if he comes from Hawaii; and when last I visited England, I was a “Yank” to everyone else. I think “
Easterling” is a term of similar sort.
Don’t overlook that Gondor identified people from Khand as a separate group distinct from Umbar, Harad, and the Easterlings, probably because they were next-door-neighbors of South Gondor, formerly firmly in Gondor’s territory, trading with (and occasionally fighting with!) Gondor for most of the Third Age. I don’t think the people of Khand were related to the people of Gondor (though they might have been related to the Black Númenóreans).
In “The Steward and the King” in
RotK,
Aragorn pardons “the Easterlings that had given themselves up, and sent them away free.” Maybe that’s one group of people, one culture or polity; but in the same sentence, “he made peace with the
peoples of Harad,” indicating that they may be comprised of several polities (Umbar and others, certainly). Perhaps only one of Sauron’s allies east of Rhûn provided troops while several of his allies south of Umbar did.
Finally, let’s consider one more group in the late Third Age, the Dúnedain themselves and their southern kinfolk, the Black Númenóreans. All are descendents of Númenórean settlers returned to Middle-earth; but the Black Númenóreans are more interrelated to the people who lived with and near them, while the Dúnedain of Gondor were less intermixed, and remnant of the Dúnedain of
Arnor seem mostly to have held themselves aloof from intermarriage with others. The Dúnedain of Arnor and of Gondor recognized one another as close kin even after a few thousand years, but I think that was because they originally came from the same polity, the Kingdom of
Elendil; still they also recognized distant kinship with the Black Númenóreans, such as the Corsairs of Umbar, many of whom were descendents of rebels from Gondor who were followers of Castamir the Usurper. There seems much less recognition of kinship with the “peoples of Harad” who were also distantly related descendents of the Kings’ Men of Númenor, though Queen Berúthiel was part of that folk.
