9. "Mayken"

Tucked stealthly into this blind cove atop the Guajira Peninsula in Venezuela in 1627, the rugged privateer by the name of Marijn Adriaensen, for all his confidence and tenacity, could not possibly have prepared himself the nature of the particular "possessions" that he and his shipmates were about to wrest control of from their Iberian rivals.

After all, four years into this ambitious "Grand Design" committed young seabeggars like Adriaensen and his team were devout in their pursuit of enriching their beloved upstart Dutch Republic via the maneuvers of this war-machine of a Company that employed them. And while all is fair in love and war, the cargo that he and his crew would be taking from this approaching Portuguese vessel was neither silver nor gold, timber, nor salted fish. But rather, a frightened, but courageous teenage girl, and two hundred and twenty four of her fellow Angolans.

But then, fate plays a pervasive and intriguing supporting role in this overall epic story. And just as they had changed the trajectory of this massive Portuguese ship, so too, would these bold mariners alter the course of the lives of these captive people...because, thanks to Marijn Adriaensen and his crew, these Angolans would not be brought by the Portuguese to the selling block at Caragena, but rather, were now going Dutch, on a direct course for the wild and still quite untethered Island of Manhattan.

ISLANDTM Episode 9 - MAYKEN

Climb aboard.