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DispatchFactbookHistory

by Almorea. . 56 reads.

(1) Almorea as the Ten Colonies, 1630 to 1699

Early colonization; 1630-1661


New Nolon, later capital of Ada Seanidh colony, in the 1630s
The first white settlers in Almorea departed from Noronica's Cain Isle in 1629 and, sailing into the Karnali Sea, landed in early 1630. Led by a farmer named John Lorne, these settlers were Nyssic, and had left their island home to seek economic opportunity. The Almorean wilderness inflicted great suffering on the newcomers, many of whom perished during their first winter, and the dark world around them gained the Nyssic name Tir na Gonhold, or "land of death". In 1632, the settlement of New Nolon was founded, led by Lorne and other Nyssic elders.

After the initial arrival in 1630, small waves of Nyssic settlers continued to emigrate to New Nolon during the decade, spreading northwards along the coast. Early economic activities largely consisted of fishing, timber-cutting, and small-scale farming in the rocky soil. Native Almoreans, who had inhabited the land for thousands of years and who had not had contact with outsiders since the days of the Tabajara Empire, were a constant threat for the Nyssic settlers. Small expeditions into the Fearann Ceo, the "land of mist" to the north of New Nolon, ended violently, culminating in the 1642 Battle of Siana Abhainn between the majority of able-bodied male settlers and the army of the Mashcak Confederacy.

In 1648, with upwards of a thousand people living in New Nolon and its environs, the Noronnican Crown chartered the colony of Ada Seanidh, named after the Nyssic harvest goddess. John Lorne was elected by the colonists as their first governor. In 1649, the fishing villages to the north of Ada Seanidh received a charter as the colony of Baeron Ur. With the colonial birth rate somewhat stable, aggressive expansion against native tribes was now possible, and in 1650 the two colonies pooled their resources to send an expedition south along the coast. In 1654, the colony of Talamh Ura was chartered to the south of Ada Seanidh.


Depredations during the Mashcak war of 1655
In 1651, regular Noronnican troops arrived in Ada Seanidh and built their first military installation in Almorea. The Crown invested heavily from this time in building a port in New Nolon with which to house Noronnican warships; this was the beginning of New Nolon's rise to become a major trading center. The death of Governor Lorne of Ada Seanidh at around the same time sparked a political crisis that led the colony's Nyssic elders to grant Almorea's first written constitution, the Basic Law, in 1652.

In 1655, Noronnican troops spearheaded a colonial expedition into the Fearann Ceo north of Baeron Ur that attacked Mashcak ancestral lands. As the army marched north across what is now known as the Ochiltree Peninsula, it was attacked by thousands of Mashcak warriors; the ensuing battle saw the death of the Mashcak chiefs and the complete destruction of the confederacy's fighting power. Settlers following in the expedition's wake had established the colony of Gabh Sinn by 1660.

By 1660, New Nolon had a population of about 8,000 people, while the four Almorean colonies had a combined population of roughly 15,000. In 1661, the governors of the four colonies met in New Nolon at the Convention of the Colonies. At the Convention, a loose alliance between the colonies was worked out, to be termed the Aonadh, or Nyssic for union. The Convention Codes, Almorea's second written constitution, established Nyssic Christianity as the official religion in Almorea and asserted the colonies' power to govern themselves, reserving the rights of the King of Noronica.

The creation of the Aonadh in 1661 was a watershed moment in Almorean history. The idea of self-governance as an inherent right of the colonists emerged for the first time, as did some sense of a "national" identity separate from merely belonging to the Nyssic culture. By this time, the colonies, particularly Ada Seanidh, were also beginning to become important centers of trade between the eastern and western regions of the Isles.



Later colonial period; 1661-1699

In 1663, an expedition marching under the Aonadh's eagle banner pushed into what is now central Almorea and defeated the native tribes living there, including the Passagans. Settlers tired of farming in the rocky coastal soil flooded the area, and in 1667 the colony of Raon Mor, or "large field", was chartered and admitted into the Aonadh. Raon Mor quickly became the breadbasket of the colonies, and, by the end of the century, had grown into one of the expanding Noronnican Empire's most productive possessions.


Fighting between colonists and natives during the Awee War (1667-70)

The Awee, a native tribe living in the wilderness to the south of Raon Mor, was the next target of Aonadh-led colonial expansion. During the Awee War, which lasted from 1667 to 1670, successive armed expeditions pushed their way through dense forests along the coast of the southern Karnali Sea. By 1671, the area had been pacified enough for the Crown to charter a colony there, Coille an Awee, which quickly became dotted with trading towns which profited from the flow of goods to the hangates of modern-day Athara magarat and the Marian kingdoms in modern-day Dragao do mar.

The 1670s saw a new wave of Nyssic emigration from Noronica into the Almorean colonies. In 1675, there were over 40,000 people living in the six colonies, a sharp increase from fifteen years earlier. In 1678, hundreds of members of Clan Frasyr, evicted from their Noronnican lands, staked out a claim in the wild land north of Gabh Sinn; Frasyrland was not chartered by the Crown until 1690.

In 1680, the Second Convention of the Colonies convened in New Nolon. Under the authority of the Aonadh, the colonies passed cooperative legislation including a ban on non-Nyssics from holding land, an act designed to preserve the cultural and ethnic supremacy of Nyssics in Almorea from non-Nyssic Noronnicans. The Aonadh also appropriated tax money to pay privateers to attack predators roaming the trade lanes; in 1682, a Noronnican naval squadron was established permanently in New Nolon.

In 1683, the Crown chartered the colony of Tir Magaidh, named after a famous Nyssic queen, to the south of Raon Mor and the west of Coille an Awee. Surveyors marked out wide boundaries for the new colony; the Crown intended for Tir Magaidh to stretch to the borders of the Marian kingdoms in the south. The First Revival of the 1680s, a rise in religious awareness spurred by contemporary rumors of the end times, prompted the establishment of the so-called Path of the Gods, a string of religious settlements penetrating deep into Tir Magaidh. To protect these settlements, in 1685 the Aonadh issued a fire-and-sword proclamation against the Hozshona tribe, but at the Battle of Blackshore a large colonial force was destroyed and slaughtered.


Ballasolash, the capital of Coille an Awee colony, in 1687
In 1687, the Crown allowed speculators to settle in the south of Tir Magaidh with the aim of establishing new colonies. New Arvan, bordering the Marian kingdoms, and Gray Hills (Cnuic Liath in Nyssic), bordering the viceroyalty of Rio do Ouro (modern-day New totzka), were the results of this prospecting. The arrival of settlers in this region, which was fertile and abundant with game, provoked the nearby native tribes to coalesce into the Confederacy of Nations, or the Sagonquit Confederacy, after the name of the leading tribe. As the last Native Almoreans not living under white rule, the Sagonquit were determined to maintain their sovereignty and way of life.

Conflict between the Sagonquit and detachments of Noronnican regulars began late in 1687. In 1688, the Third Convention of the Colonies convened; the seven chartered colonies, as well as representatives from the three non-chartered colonies, attended. The Convention ordered each governor to raise a tax for the purpose of sending a large colonial army south under the Aonadh banner to destroy the Sagonquit Confederacy and make the southern colonies safe for large-scale settlement. The resulting Sagonquit Wars commenced later that year when the Arm an Aonadh, boasting 11,000 men and famous as Almorea's first national army, attacked the confederacy's territory.

The Sagonquit Wars lasted until 1693, with intermittent fighting. At the Battle of Painted Run in 1691, the Aonadh force inflicted a cruel defeat on the natives, routing them and butchering thousands. The Treaty of Fort Lovsk, signed in late 1693, ended the war by dissolving the Sagonquit Confederacy and binding all native tribes in perpetual allegiance to the Crown; New Arvan and Gray Hills were also officially chartered.


The fifth, and last, Convention of the Colonies meets in 1698
The 1690s were a decade of prosperity for the Almorean colonies. As the noose began to tighten around the Nyssic clans in Noronica, wave after wave of new arrivals washed up on Almorean shores; by 1700, the population of the colonies was above 100,000. A defined system of classes- Nyssic-speaking planters, merchants, and artisans ruling the roost over non-Nyssic Noronnican laborers and farmers, who were in turn above natives and non-Noronnicans- was taking shape.

In 1697, the Treaty of Noronnican Union was ratified by the Noronnican Parliament amidst domestic instability; Queen Mary I became the Overlady of Noronica. In response to the treaty, the Fourth Convention of the Colonies convened later in 1697 to offer anxious congratulations to the new Overlady. The Eastern Rebellion, fought by the Nyssic clans in Noronica against the government in response to the union during the winter of 1697-98, ended with the Battle of Serrington in the spring of 1698 at which the Nyssic army was destroyed. In the summer, Noronnican forces invaded rebellious Lovsk, killing 54,000 inhabitants.

With Nyssic political power undone in Noronica, the clock was ticking for Almorean self-government. In an atmosphere of confusion and fear, the Fifth Convention of the Colonies met in 1698 and sent a formal protest to Parliament, which was busily proscribing the Nyssic language and other elements of the culture. The leaders of the Aonadh now lashed out, contemplating defiance and rebellion, but it was too late; on October 31, 1698, thousands of Noronnican troops arrived in New Nolon with a decree abolishing the Aonadh, appointing royal governors in each of the ten colonies, and enforcing parliamentary proscriptions. Self-government was ended, and Parliament asserted its authority to legislate for the Almorean colonies.

The Long Darkness, the period of direct Noronnican rule, had begun. In 1699, the Great Anglicization swept away Nyssic place-names, including the names of the colonies, and rendered them phonetically in English. The musket, the judge's robe, and the English grammar book became the new symbols of Almorea.



Resources
The Basic Law; Almorea's first written constitution from 1652
A statute on wolves; a law passed by the 1680 Second Convention of the Colonies

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