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Bahio-Imaguans

A black grandmother with her daughters and granddaughters
Total population
~2,000,000
Regions with significant populations
Imagua and the Assimas	783,903
Eldmark	148,506
Languages
Estmerish, Etrurian, and Imaguan Creole
Religion
Sotirianism

Bahio-Imaguans (Etrurian: Bahiano-imaguani, Imaguan Creole: Bahis-imakusa) are people in Imagua and the Assimas who are of Bahian descent.

As of the 2011 census, the Bahio-Imaguan population comprise 60% of the country's population, with the Bahio-Imaguans generally living in large urban centres such as Cuanstad, San Pietro, Altaithe, Nua Taois, Lundholm, and Knowleston.

Etymology

The term Bahio-Imaguan was first used by anthropologist Lou Walsham in 1886 in a paper describing the "lifestyle of those Bahians who have migrated to Imagua from their homes in Bahia." At the time, it was initially used to only refer to those who were from Bahia, with their descendants being considered simply blacks (Etrurian: nere or neri, Imaguan Creole: swatna).

However, in the early twentieth century, the Labour Party (precursor to the Democratic Labour Party) used the term to refer to all persons of Bahian descent, with co-founder and party leader Clayton Keating saying in 1908 that:

"The term Bahio-Imaguan gives dignity to a people who for generations have been considered inferior to the white population, for it connects them to the achievements of their Bahian homeland, while acknowledging that we have developed our own identity separate from our cousins in Bahia."

Over the next few decades, this term gained widespread use among the left-wing, while the right-wing continued to maintain the usage of "black" or "black Imaguan," with Democratic Prime Minister Peter Hansson saying in 1918 that the term "black Imaguan" was "accurate, as only a handful of them are from Bahia."

However, by the 1940s, Bahio-Imaguan became accepted as a formal term for referring to those of Bahian descent in Imagua, but black continued to be used in informal circumstances until the late 1960s and early 1970s, when the term became seen as offensive.

History

Slave trade

Sugar plantation in Lundholm, 1723

The ancestors of what would become the Bahio-Imaguan population on what would become the present-day state of Imagua and the Assimas first arrived in 1647 when a slave ship arrived in Cuanstad. While the slave population under the Ordennyan colonizers were minuscule, in part due to the high numbers of native Arucians residing on the island of Imagua and the Assimas Islands in the first century of rule over the islands.

It was only after Ordennya lost control of Imagua to Estmere in 1658 that the slave trade really kicked into high gear, with Estmerish settlers establishing plantations for the production of sugarcane on the island. As much of the native Arucian population have been decimated by disease or by overwork or abuse, it became necessary for slaves to be imported from Bahia in order to develop the plantations.

As Estmere had control over trading posts in Bahia, most of the Bahian population can trace their origins to present-day Rwizikuru. Conditions were harsh for the slaves under Estmerish rule, especially on the sugar plantations, with life expectancy on sugar plantations in particular being measured in 1663 to be around five years after arrival on Imagua. While conditions were gradually improved over the next few decades, mostly to ensure their survival as the cost of importing slaves was expensive, conditions remained harsh.

Thus, in 1740, slavery was abolished, including the slave trade, which ended the importation of slaves to Imagua. While slaves were now freed, and were no longer bound to the land, many remained employed by their former owners, although conditions improved dramatically.

Meanwhile, on the Assimas Islands, the importation of Bahians was relatively few and far between, with most of them in Eldmark being imported to serve as household servants, due to both their expense, and the fact that it gave their owners prestige. By the 1750s, it was estimated that there were less than a few hundred black slaves on the Assimas. Slavery would be abolished in Eldmark in (TBD).