Some early Africans in the New World were free conquistadors who themselves enslaved others.

Evidence

A few ladinos, however, played less anonymous parts in the conquest of the New World. Leslie Rout characterizes them as “compatriots.” One, Nuflo de Olano, accompanied Balboa in 1513. … Another, Juan Garrido (Handsome John), apparently crossed the atlantic as a freeman, participated in the siege of Tenochtitlan and, in subsequent conquests and explorations, tried his hand as an entrepreneur (with both Negro and Indian slaves of his own) in the early search for gold, and took his place as a citizen in the Spanish quarter of Mexico City. — Cedric J. Robinson, Black Marxism_ The Making of the Black…, 639

Categorization

• XREF: Complicates any clean ‘Black = always enslaved’ narrative of early conquest; a free Black conquistador owning slaves complicates the tradition’s origin story.