Gowsa

A photograph of gowsas working in Satucin, 1927

Some gowsa ships seen in Binhame Inlet in the 19th century

A gowsa (/'gaʊzə/) is a emigrant from Dezevau (or sometimes nearby parts of Southeast Coius) who has migrated to work in manual labour overseas for economic reasons. The term is especially applied to those who moved in the 19th and early 20th centuries to the colonial holdings of Euclean empires, many of which had a want of labour because of the abolition of slavery. Frequently, gowsas were transported and worked in poor conditions, under contracts of indenture which could resemble slavery. However, free migration was also known. Many gowsas returned home after working for a time, but many also, either by choice or necessity, settled in the places to which they had migrated. The descendants of gowsas form significant populations in many regions.

Most gowsas migrated to the parts of the Asterias around the Arucian Sea, where the wide availability of land combined with suitable climates meant many colonial empires had found it profitable to set up plantation economies. However, gowsas also frequently worked as servants, and in mining, construction, forestry and smallholder agriculture (in particular, market gardens). Large numbers, however, also went to parts of Coius and islands of the Vehemens Ocean, and even further abroad. Their contribution to labour-scarce colonial economies was often significant, and they also came to occupy political and cultural niches. It is estimated that from the end of the Asterian War of Secession to the Great Collapse, over a million gowsas emigrated from Dezevau and its surrounds. Satucin received 450,000, as the single biggest destination, followed by Aucuria with 100,000. Gowsa migration was in decline by the time of the Great Collapse in 1913 owing to a range of factors, but it essentially ended as a mass phenomenon then.

The descendant populations of gowsas are typically substantially intermixed in their countries, and there is no discernible gap in most places in the wealth of those who are descended from gowsas and those who are not. The historical demographic significance of gowsas in some places has seen the term be applied as an ethnic label (for example in Imagua and the Assimas) with varying usages depending on the locality, though usually being used as a blanket term to refer to or identify substantial ancestry from northern Southeast Coius. The largest descendant populations of gowsas who did not return home are today in Satucin, Halland and Eldmark; mass migration of unreturned gowsas and their descendants to the developed countries of Asteria Superior occurred during the 20th century.

Etymology

The Estmerish term "gowsa" comes from the Ziba phrase gauza zebiumhi, literally meaning "bitter migration".

Zebiumhi is, however, a culturally nuanced term; it refers specifically to the settlement of unsettled or non-agriculturalised areas, generally in pursuit of land and security of livelihood, and usually involves moving from one polity to another. Most zebiumhi in Dezevau until the 19th century was overland or via rivers, and occurred in regions adjacent to Dezevauni agricultural civilisation.

In early modern Dezevau, then, gauza zebiumhi referred to migration over saltwater, which was thought of as bitter, hence the terminology. The meaning was multifaceted, as gauza also brought to mind the difficulty of migration over long distances in that era. Eucleans took someone who engaged in gauza migration to be a "gowsa", the term which became established and commonplace, even official, for referring to that kind of migrant at the time.

History

Aguda Empire

Main article: Aguda Empire

Gowsa migration can said to have originated during the Aguda Empire. While in the period preceding its establishment, wars and other disruptions had caused significant dislocation, there was no phenomenon of migration outside the local region outside of a few traders and adventurers. The period of population growth ushered in by the Aguda Empire from around the 16th century onwards coincided with the introduction of Euclean influences in the region. Despite the beneficial introduction of Asterian agricultural species, fertile land became scarce and economic conditions difficult at times. By the 18th century, small but notable numbers of Dezevaunis were taking advantage of Euclean maritime traffic to memigrate in search of a better existence. This migration was not encouraged by any governmental authorities, but the precedent it began to set would be significant in terms of the terms, customs and ideas which surrounded later migration.

Saint Bermude's Company

Saint Bermude's Company main offices at Saint-Bermude, fortified as they were in the 18th century

Main article: Saint Bermude's Company

While the Aguda Empire formally continued to exist in some form or another until the early 19th century, its authority and integrity was usurped by the Gaullican Saint Bermude's Company mainly in the 18th century. The integration of Dezevau into a global economic system, at the head of which sat Euclea, opened opportunities for migration. Free migration in search of better economic conditions accelerated at this time, as the Saint Bermude's Company policies, designed to generate profit for itself and the homeland, failed to alleviate or even worsened the phenomenon of high food prices.

Euclean migration and Bahian slaves, however, provided for the great majority of labour needs in the global imperialist-capitalist system. The term "gowsa" became well-established at this time, as their populations, though smaller than those of Eucleans and Bahians, tended to be the third largest non-native group in colonised regions.

Abolition of slavery

Near the end of the 18th century, slavery was banned in Estmere, followed by most of the Eastern world in the first half of the 19th century. As ex-slaves migrated or changed the circumstances of their employment, this development created industry-specific or general shortages of labour in many colonial regions of the world, or strengthened the position of labour in those areas to an extent uncomfortable for rulers. Capitalists and governments sought a solution to this problem, and found one, inspired by the existing small communities of Dezevaunis.

A plantation in Vinalia

Because of the situation in their homeland from the development of city-states to corporate rule, Dezevauni peasants tended to be familiar with tropical agriculture, urbanisation and cash economies. They were also numerous, and had a culture or custom of migration for agricultural reasons, known as zebiumhi in Ziba. With existing migrants as proof of concept, colonial administrations began to induce mass migration from Dezevau to labour-poor areas under their rule, with the goal of alleviating the situation with labour. Saint Bermude's Company found it profitable to help arrange the emigration of those under its administration, which reduced pressure on resources and could net them a fee; world colonial powers found access to a cheap source of labour, which both did not carry the stigma of slavery, but was also less restive because of the better conditions granted than to the slaves of old. With Dezevau promoted in the Euclean eye as a semi-civilised locale, Euclean powers exported labour.

The great majority of gowsas migrated through the auspices of the Saint Bermude's Company, mostly to Gaullican colonies, but also being supplied to other Euclean powers either for profit or as a diplomatic boon. However, Estmere also took advantage of its holdings, small territories centred on Mount Palmerston, to export labour; the competition that went on between Estmere and Gaullica for local labour helped improve conditions for migrants, especially as it was relatively easy to move between Estmerish and Gaullican territories until later in the 19th century. A plurality, perhaps even most migrants came from the Doboadane basin, in the northeast of modern Dezevau, which had been particularly violently and thoroughly colonised, and was rurally impoverished as a result; this was also the region in which the main Estmerish presence was. The single largest oceangoing port of departure for gowsas was Saint-Bermude, though very many first came through Noagiabegia, or departed directly from there.

Port facilities at Noagiabegia

Numbers rose from the 18th century onwards, but the biggest boom started in the 1840s, as several notable economies eliminated slavery or became more open to immigration and free trade. Large numbers of gowsas moved to areas around the Arucian and Vehemens Ocean islands such as Satucin, Imagua and Nouvel Anglet because of their tropical or subtropical climate, the best areas for plantation economies. However, smaller numbers were present further afield, such as in Atudée, Cassier and Halland. Gowsas came to work in fields as diverse as agriculture, construction, mining and forestry. They had a key role in the construction of Cassier's railways which was the first in the Asterias to connect cities on both sides of the continent by rail.

Photograph of gowsas from Bouvamedagavo in Imagua, 1935

Decline of gowsa migration

Towards the end of the 19th century, labour shortages ceased to be much of a problem in most gowsa destinations. This was as a result of long-running migration, but also the mechanisation of agriculture, and natural population growth. In destination regions themselves, the increasing trend of self-rule allowed nativism the power to reduce or prevent gowsa migration, and where it occurred, independence tended to sever a country's links to the colonial powers with access to the source of gowsas. Additionally, free migration from countries such as Senria and Xiaodong was on the rise globally as mobility improved and imperialism's reach became wider, even as push factors may have been declining in Dezevau where population pressures had been relieved by industry or new agricultural techniques.

It is thus that in 1889, with the formation of State of Désébau and the Bureau for Southeast Coius which controlled it in practice, gowsa migration was already in decline. The colonial administration was aware of this fact, and furthermore, considered it unprofitable for and disruptive to the development of local extractive industries. This perception was possibly furthered by sympathetic remittances to the Dezevauni Section of the Workers' International made by wealthier gowsas or descendants of gowsas. Policy was therefore unsympathetic to further emigration, though it continued at a reduced rate.

In 1913, the Great Collapse occurred. As unemployment skyrocketed around the world, the phenomenon of gowsa migration finally essentially came to an end; most regions were worse hit than Désébau itself. Some, however, claim that small scale but still notably gowsa-style migration was still extant in the years leading up to the Great War.

Many gowsas returned to Dezevau in the 20th century; in Tsabara, nearly the entire gowsa population departed because of nationalism, changes in the postcolonial economy and the Great War. In many plantation economies, such as Imagua, gowsas and their descendants emigrated, being among the most recent ethnic groups to arrive, having entered the middle class, or finding employment had dried up. Many moved to the urban industrial centres of countries such as Halland and Eldmark.

Demography

In total, over a million gowsas migrated, and around ten million people (outside of the countries of origin for gowsas) are identified as descendants of gowsas, or members of a gowsa class or ethnicity. Because of the role of self-identification in the latter, and varying methodologies around the world, ten million is widely acknowledged to be likely a much smaller number than the absolute number of people who have any ancestry at all from a permanently emigrated gowsa.

The great majority of gowsas were ethnic Dezevauni from within the borders of modern Dezevau, but it is not uncommon that migrants from neighbouring countries were counted also as gowsa, or that non-ethnically Dezevauni migrants were not considered gowsa. In particular, a substantial number came from Terangau, where cultural and religious similarities meant there was often little distinction made between gowsas from there and the mainland. In Dezevau, most gowsas came from the Doboadane river basin region in the northeast, owing to its sea access, thorough colonisation and rural impoverishment. It is debated what proportion exactly came from there, but it is not doubted that it was such a large one that it was at least close to a majority.

Gowsa destinations

Country legend (1840 CE)
Template:Country data Estmere   Etruria   Gaullica   Narozalica   Independent

This table lists territories extant in 1840 and the total number of gowsas who moved to them, with subtitles by geographical region.

Territory	Number
Alexandrian Gulf islands
Saint-Baptiste	0+
Subtotal	0
Arucian Sea islands
Assimas Islands	2,000
Imagua	75,000
Sanslumière	90,000
Subtotal	167,000
Continental Asteria Inferior
Aucuria	100,000
Caluchia	200,000
Nuvania	55,000
Satucin	450,000
Zaralaja	20,000
Subtotal	825,000
Continental Asteria Superior
Cassier	27,000
Eldmark	70,000
Halland	15,000
Marirana	0+
Nuxica	0+
Vinalia	12,000
Subtotal	124,000
Continental Coius
Atudée	90,000
Rwizikuru	500
Ténéré	10,000
Subtotal	100,500
Vehemens Ocean islands
Nouvel Anglet	90,000
St Robert's and Fleming	10,000
Subtotal	100,000
Total	1,316,500

Gowsa descendants

In some cases, this data means those who identify as being gowsa or of gowsa origin, while in other cases it is all those who have any gowsa ancestors. Complex and repeated patterns of migration and intermixture make assessing the gowsa legacy academically difficult.

Country	Number	Notes
Aucuria	600,000
Caluchia	1,400,000
Cassier	520,000	Significant immigration from other parts of Asterias
Eldmark	1,000,000
Template:Country data Estmere	60,000 (St Robert's and Fleming)
Gaullica	670,000 (Nouvel Anglet)
Halland	1,092,863	Significant immigration from other parts of Asterias
Imagua and the Assimas	104,520	Significant emigration to other parts of Asterias
Marirana	0+
Nuvania	400,000
Nuxica	0+
Saint-Baptiste	0+
Sanslumière	412,563
Satucin	2,500,000
Vinalia	60,000
Zaralaja	280,000
Total	9,037,383

Conditions

A hearing for a repatriation appeal, Caluchia 1870

The conditions of transport and labour for gowsas were often very poor, both for free migrants and indentured. In the course of migration, they encountered issues such as unfamiliar diet, overcrowding, lack of clean water, lack of hygienic facilities, disease, and ill-treatment from those operating or administrating ships, ports, housing and so forth. It is estimated that of x million would-be gowsas who left ports in and around Dezevau, x million perished before arrival. Free migrants, who paid their own way, generally had a better time. It is acknowledged, however, that despite poor conditions, gowsas had on the whole better lots than the slaves they in many cases replaced. Employers did not hold legal rights over them in the way they did over chattel, and typically gowsas were free to leave employment at will, or had fixed term contracts which provided for right of return.

Overseas Inspectors

The late Aguda Empire was petitioned by those with relations with gowsas to take action on reports of poor conditions visited on its emigrants. While at first resistant to take responsibility, opposing the practice of gowsa emigration as reducing its own workforce, it dispatched a small number of Overseas Inspectors to report on the welfare of gowsas overseas and advocate for them in the late 18th century. As the Aguda Empire's domestic power withered away in favour of Saint Bermude's Company, it became more open to engaging in essentially symbolic humanitarian and diplomatic actions around the world. From the 1840s onwards, it largely ceased opposition to the practice of gowsa emigration, finding itself unable to make any serious impact, and increasingly an organ of government only maintained for show. There were several hundred active Overseas Inspectors, at least on paper, by the 19th century.

An Overseas Inspector with guests, St Robert's and Fleming 1919

In many places, Overseas Inspectors were not recognised and/or refused entry. When they were allowed in, the impacts they had varied.

In some cases, they took on the role of community representative, especially where they were one of the few non-indentured people in a gowsa community; it was often that they had the wealth and connections to make impacts on local governance and business that gowsas themselves generally did not. Becoming closely involved with local issues, many Overseas Inspectors did not deign to maintain contact or return to the homeland.

In some other cases, they functioned as diplomatic representatives of the empire, with little engagement with local communities. Where they were received as if dignitaries or diplomats, Overseas Inspectors became as cultural or political ambassadors, or even little more than exotic hangers-on in local high society. This was a frequent outcome where local communities were inaccessible or small.

In other cases further yet, Overseas Inspectors combined representation of local communities with that of their dispatcher. This was more achievable and common in regions closer to and more familiar to the Aguda Empire.

The practice of dispatching Overseas Inspectors was carried on by some organisations and polities in the decline of the Aguda Empire, and was aided by or conducted through the Saint Bermude's Company at least on occasion. However, by the late 19th century, no more were sent abroad, with those still in action being those who had elected to stay with their communities, even without state support. The model of these Overseas Inspectors inspired later governmental systems of administration for gowsa communities in some areas.

Identity

Part of the Gowsa Collection at the University of Biunhamaomao

The circumstances of identity and belonging in the historical context of the Dezevauni city-states and the Aguda Empire did not fit neatly into modern conceptions of nation. While gowsas who intended to permanently emigrate would have thought of themselves as finding a new home in a new polity, as per the idea of zebiumhi, they retained cultural characteristics, and may have identified with the broader Dezevauni ethnocultural self-conception. In recent times, there has been somewhat of a revival in awareness. The ideas of identity surrounding gowsas are also significant in the conception of working class identity, as far as gowsas were distinguished not only by their ethnicity but by their class; it has been contended that like Bahian slaves, gowsas typically formed an ethno-class.

The appearance of the idea of a gowsa or gowsa-based ethnicity is significant in the study of ethnicisation, as a recent, robust, well-documented example of ethnogenesis.

Class

Gowsas were working class, often participating in the primary sector activities which fuelled and supplied the leading industries of the times. They were often aware of this, as well as the way in which they would be brought in to replace or threaten local labour. There were various and divergent reactions to this fact; one reaction was that gowsas clung to their position in the racial class hierarchy, above Bahians but below Eucleans. Often, this led to harsh ethnic acrimony between Bahians and gowsas. Another reaction was working class solidarity across the groups; when this occurred, capitalists and governments did their best to break it up, as organised labour was a political and economic threat. The presence (or absence) of organised labour influenced ethnic relations in generations to come, and where it came out the strongest, the incentive for bringing in gowsas was reduced; immigration did not press labour where even the new immigrants could easily be organised.

Much literature, music, art and other works created by gowsas and their descendants deal with themes of liminality, migration, dislocation, belonging and shame. In particular, much of gowsa art and thought involve coming to terms with the idea of the gowsa as a scab, or traitor to solidarity on a global scale.

Language

Most gowsas spoke Ziba natively. However, where there was a dialect continuum in the language's homeland of Dezevau, migration often put together those from opposite ends of the continuum, with the result that people who were understood to speak Ziba could not communicate easily. Dialects levelled out, with Western varieties being largely negated, and the Doboadane varieties becoming dominant with the strongest influences from Bugunho varieties. Innovations, however, did occur, and many gowsas and descendants thereof came to speak Doboadane-based mixed dialects. These varieties are known as Asterian Ziba, today, and have had some impacts (mainly lexically) on Ziba in Dezevau.

A redecorated Badi shrine in Cassier

Religion

The gowsas were, to begin with, overwhelmingly Badists, as they originated mainly from Dezevau but also from Terangau. They brought their beliefs with them in migration, along with other aspects of cultural identity, and it was common for gowsa-populated plantations to have a small interelemental temple for its workers. Badi helped the migrants to make sense of and become comfortable with their environments, which could vary a little or greatly from their native locales. Snowfall and ice were foreign to most gowsas, and in areas where they occurred, it was not uncommon for there to be a focus on the theological element of Water, with the rapid development of new mysteries and lore.

A significant number of gowsas were also Irfanic, or as missionary work in Dezevau intensified, Sotirian. The most significant denomination was that of Gaullica, the Sotirian Catholic Church, but there was also a notable presence of the Episemialist Church and non-denominationals. For non-Badist gowsas, their choice of destination often considered whether their religion was practiced in their destination, when they had the agency to make these choices. Religion likely influenced, additionally, the decision of many gowsas to stay or return home; living in a religious community which incorporated them as part of the dominant majority was an appealing prospect, though economic concerns were the main drivers of decisionmaking.

Many gowsas, as is common for emigrants regardless of their prior beliefs, converted to religions found in the places they had migrated to. In some cases, churches formed which largely catered to these converts and their descendants.

Impact on migratory destinations

Economic

A depiction of a multiethnic workforce building railways in Cassier

Gowsas were a source of labour, primarily manual, for the destinations they migrated to. They filled in the need for a workforce in industries ranging from plantation cropping to construction to mining, and were associated with economic booms. Their mobility was significant in the nature of their labour.

Throughout the 20th century, gowsas and their descendants' regional connections and economic diversification placed them on an equal footing with other inhabitants of the places they lived. Most countries do not see a systematic difference in wealth between those who are descended from gowsas and not. On the other hand, countries with larger populations of gowsas are generally more prosperous; it is thought that this is the result of gowsa remigration to more economically successful places from the old extractive and plantation economies.

Race rioting in Eldmark around the turn of 20th century

Politics

Racial or ethnic tensions sometimes arose, either between different groups of gowsas (who might have come from different cities in Dezevau) or between gowsas and other groups. At times, Bahian ex-slaves were hostile as they were seen to be depressing wages and making it impossible to place pressure on employers, and racial supremacy caused hostility at other times, in regards of Euclean groups. Gowsas were generally perceived as superior to Bahian ex-slaves and their descendants. However, admixture often went a considerable way to bridging these gaps. Developments in the idea of working class solidarity across racial lines, often with the involvement of socialists, also helped bring groups together, and often seriously impeded the efforts of local authorities and magnates to suppress the demands of labour. Gowsas, both returned and permanently emigrant, often found themselves alienated from traditional structures, and frequently had strong involvement with socialist movements. The Dezevauni Section of the Workers' International had some involvement with gowsas outside Dezevau, and received overseas support in the form of statements and remittances, but its operation was mainly domestic and involving returned gowsas.

Culture

Gowsas brought their culture and customs with them. They changed the religious makeup of the places they went, influenced cuisine, introduced linguistic features, changed class and race relations, modified local custom and developed innovations. Badi and the Ziba language are just two important examples of this. Ganomes were introduced to the Asterias, in particular Halland and Eldmark, in great part through gowsa migration (and remigration).

Impact on Dezevau

A subcommittee of the Dezevauni Section of the Workers' International, primarily comprised of returned gowsas, discussing health policy

The gowsa phenomenon both boosted the Dezevauni economy and weakened it; gowsas who returned or sent remittances contributed considerably to the colonial economic activity, but their emigration also deprived it of its population of working, fighting and childbearing age. Some scholars contend that gowsa emigration contributed significantly to the colonial impoverishment of the Doboadane basin region, while others disagree. It is not certain whether most gowsas came from the Doboadane region, or if they merely transited through it, even in contemporary scholarship.

Returned gowsas often played an important role in Dezevau. They brought back new experiences, ideas and skills with them, in addition to wealth, diseases, families, species and chattels. This large scale population movement changed the country in some ways that had not occurred before, despite substantial colonisation. Many shifts in cultivation patterns, diets and health have been traced back to returned gowsas as the root cause. In the State of Désébau (established 1889) they were often noted for social mobility and agitation, which led to ineffective suppressive efforts. In the Dezevauni Section of the Workers' International, much to do with proletarian internationalism was influenced or handled by returned gowsas. It was not until well after Dezevauni independence that their presence in society faded as the generation aged away, though many Dezevauni today still trace their family history back to gowsas.

Notable gowsas and descendants of gowsas

• John Gimmuzibi, Governor of St Robert's and Fleming

See also

• Badi by country
• Dezevauni people in Amathia