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Originally Posted by Zigûr
The quote I gave from "Akallabêth" states definitively that there were three. They certainly did not receive their rings from Sauron while he was in Númenor because he didn't go there until much later, but as you've stated there were many Númenóreans in Middle-earth before that, hence my suggestion about "colonial lords."
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It's in the Akallbeth, that we're told
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"...ensnared with the Nine Rings three were great lords of Númenorean race".
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(emphasis mine)
This is a reference in materials about the Shadow that falls upon Numenor, and though Sauron may not have brought The Nine Rings directly to Numenor--we do know that he developed a grudge about Tar Minastir's involvement, 1700 SA, in the Battle of the Gwathló, when Sauron was defeated by the Númenorean force from Vinyalondë, at which time,
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Sauron was routed utterly and he himself only narrowly escaped. … Humiliated he returned to Mordor, and vowed vengeance upon Númenor.
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Quote's from UT, tale of Galadriel and Celeborn, which is one of the few materials around that extends Silmarillion materials in relation to stuff about events during and after the sack of the House of the Mirdain.
Interestingly, we know that the Shadow falls on Numenor, around 1800. Now--requoting--
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"...ensnared with the Nine Rings three were great lords of Númenorean race".
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The Witchking was someone, it seems, with a particular grudge against Numenor. I wonder--a Prince of Numenor--possibly even a blood relative of the Line of Elros--at the least, a Prince of noble ranking, around the time Tar Minastir starts sacking ME and laying harbours down.
I wouldn't be surprised if he was a rival to the King, and jealous of that power. Perhaps someone humiliated by a High Council in Numenor. Sauron, I suspect, chose the person by reputation, or by appeals to conceit, after the 'humiliating' defeat. Sounds like a basis for the grudge match to me. Sauron got personal.
Whoever it was Sauron chose, they had about 700 years before getting scary. Given the Numenorean lifespan, I wonder then also--probably not one of the Numenoreans who lived 400 years (Elros's line in the Kingship). Perhaps this Prince was just your average Numenorean then. In any case, Tar Atanamir was born in 1800, and around this time, dissent first appears in Numenor, and soon after, the choice not to return Life to Eru, voluntarily, but for the Kings to cling on until death. This all makes me wonder--if these three chosen Numenoreans, for a while, were present making trouble in Numenor.....