User:Luziyca/Sandbox
 Depiction of an evadee | |
| Regions with significant populations | |
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| Languages | |
| TBD | |
| Religion | |
| Sotirianity |
The Evadees (Etrurian: Evade) are descendants of Bahian slaves who freed themselves from slavery in Imagua and established themselves in the Central Highlands of Imagua. While the term can also be applicable to the evadees on the smaller Assimas Islands, the evadee populations were significantly smaller and less documented than the evadees on the island of Imagua.
Etymology
The term evadees is believed to come from the Gaullican term évadé, meaning "the escaped," which stems from the Gaullican term evader, or "to escape."
It was first used to refer to escaped slaves in 1682, when Parry Lambourne, ancestor of Harmon Lambourne, wrote to an Estmerish insurance broker that he "sent men to the mountains to try and recover some slaves who fled our plantation, but they evaded every single attempt in recapturing: after several weeks, we have only managed to recover two children from the evadés [sic]." However, escapee was a far more common term than evadee until the mid-eighteenth century, when Gaullica took control of Imagua from Estmere after the end of the Gilded Wars in 1721.
During Gaullican rule, with the introduction of Gaullican, the term évadé became a common way to refer to escaped slaves who lived in the Central Highlands, with the term sticking after the end of Gaullican rule in 1771. The modern spelling would become common around 1850, with most sources arguing that this is because of the term's similarity to escapees, deportees, and refugees.
Early history
Origins
From the start of Caldish colonisation, escaped slaves on the island of Imagua (at this time Native Imaguans) would flee to areas with low white settlement, with this trend continuing during Blostlandic rule of Imagua, with escaped slaves captured in present-day Eldmark fleeing into the Central Highlands. These escaped slaves would form the basis of the evadee community, with archaeological evidence suggesting that there were around 28 sites in the Nearon Valley associated with "indigenous evadees" between 1550 and 1650.
With the seizure of Imagua by Estmere in 1658, Estmerish settlers not only encroached on the evadee communities in the Glen Valley, but brought Bahian slaves as part of the triangle trade to work on sugar or nutmeg plantations. Due to their short life expectancy and brutal working conditions, many slaves on the island of Imagua would escape to the Central Highlands, where they would intermingle with the indigenous Asterians who fled decades earlier, and create a distinct evadee society.
Evadees were able to survive by subsistence farming and through raiding nearby plantations. Initially, early evadee governance bore stark similarities to the village system practiced in Bahia, with direct democracy being practiced by evadee communities, with a chieftain being in charge of an evadee community.
Formation of the Westward and Eastward Evadees
Beginning in the 1670s, slave uprisings became more prevalent on the island of Imagua, due to the arrival of members of the warrior caste to Imagua, under the belief that their fitness would make them more likely to survive the harsh conditions of sugar production.
The most notable uprising during this period was in 1681, when the Parlow estate faced an uprising of around 800 slaves, with most of the slaves fleeing to the Central Highlands, where they would establish a town in present-day Lethbridge. There, they coalesced around Chepiri Parlow, who established a Houregic polity around the town. Although Chepiri was killed in battle in 1683, and many of the slaves were recaptured when their settlement was captured, 300 were able to "evade their owners," and formed their own community in the Central Highlands. The Chepiri evadees would become dominant among many evadee communities, with Chepiri's successor, Queen Ruwa coalescing most of the evadee communities on the western slopes of the Glen Valley into what would become the Westward Evadees.
On the eastern slopes of the Glen Valley, a slave revolt in 1689 when 300 slaves escaped from several plantations near Happy Valley into the Central Highlands. Unlike the Westward Evadees, which was significantly organised along Houregic lines, the Eastward Evadee communities created as a result of the 1689 slave revolt were decentralised and never coalesced into Hourege-style polities, instead following a model most similar to the village system.
By 1700, it was estimated that there were around a thousand evadee communities around the Glen Valley, split roughly evenly between the Westward and Eastward evadees. Furthermore, some evidence emerged of evadee communities along the northern slopes of Mount Apita, with one community which numbered 60 individuals being completely buried in the 1694 eruption of Mount Apita, as well as some evadee communities along the southern slopes of Mount Guanara. However, compared to the evadees around the Glen Valley, these evadee communities were minor, and never coalesced into a major organisational grouping compared to the Westward and Eastward Evadees.
Heyday of the evadees
Gilded Wars and Gaullican rule
During the Gilded Wars between Gaullica and Estmere, as word spread inland of Gaullica's attack on Estmere, the Westward Evadees led by Queen Ruka, as well as some villages among the Eastward Evadees started to believe that Gaullica would bring them freedom from the "chains of slavery," and that if they fought against the Estmerish, that they would be able to be free.
Thus, in 1711, Queen Ruwa launched Queen Ruwa's Rebellion against the Estmerish. While Queen Ruwa died in 1713, she was succeeded by King Conlan, who develops tactics to "wear and tire" the Estmerish forces defending the island, allowing the Westward Evadees to raid and burn several settlements, most notably Altaithe in 1716, while liberating slaves from plantations and incorporating them into the evadee community.
Following the cession of Imagua to Gaullica in 1721, King Conlan would negotiate a treaty with the Gaullicans in 1723 where the Westward Evadees were granted some land, comprised of seven towns, including Chepiri Town, in exchange for the Westward Evadees no longer admitting any new evadees into their communities, and cooperating with the Gaullican authorities to crush slave revolts.
However, among the Eastward Evadees, while some were willing to cooperate with the Gaullicans, many Eastward Evadee villages were less willing to cooperate with the Gaullicans. Thus, when a slave revolt broke out in 1734 at the Fanshaw estate, many Eastward Evadees cooperated with the slaves, while the Westward Evadees under King Conlan were sent to crush the slave revolt, doing so successfully, although 41 slaves would evade capture by the Westward Evadees and Gaullican militiamen.
In 1742, King Conlan died, and the Westward Evadees split in two, with Conlan's son, Acon Conlan, remaining loyal to Gaullica, and Conlan's first cousin once removed, Oparo Smith, who was more sympathetic to the Estmerish and with the Eastern Evadees. Thus, in 1744, Oparo Smith launched Oparo's Rebellion, rebelling against Gaullican rule. Oparo made some gains early on, to the point of taking over Chepiri Town by 1746, but the combined support of Gaullican soldiers, forces loyal to Acon Conlan, and the Gaullican-aligned villages among the Eastern Evadees meant that by 1749, Oparo was killed in battle, and Oparo's Rebellion came to an end.
However, in response to Oparo's Rebellion, the rights of the Westward Evadees were reduced, with Ruwa Town (near Ballavagg), where Oparo lived, being depopulated, and its inhabitants sold back into slavery. Furthermore, Gaullican officials were sent to live in the remaining six towns of the Westward Evadees, in an effort to "quell any signs of rebellion" before they occur, which eroded the autonomy of the Westward Evadees.
By 1752, Gaullican officials recorded that 3,219 evadees lived in the six towns governed by Acon Conlan. At the same time, it is estimated that of the 80-90 communities among the Eastward Evadees, around two thousand evadees inhabited these communities, although poor documentation of the Eastward Evadees, and the lack of treaties between the Gaullican authorities and Eastward Evadees meant that it is difficult to gather numbers.
During the 1750s, the Eastward Evadees, realising that their divisions would allow Gaullicans and the Westward Evadees to exploit them for their own gain, began to coalesce into a unified entity. Unlike the Westward Evadees, who adopted a Houregic system, the Eastward Evadees would have each of their villages elect a delegate to serve on a council, who would elect a headman to assert the rights of the Eastward Evadees. This position was held by Gideon Bohannon.
In 1762, Gideon Bohannon would launch Gideon's Rebellion, with Gideon Bohannon seeking to either create "an independent state" or acquiring concessions from the Gaullicans. Improving on the tactics used by King Conlan and Oparo Smith, Gideon Bohannon was able to carve out an area where the Eastward Evadees could govern themselves, while liberating slaves. The Westward Evadees, who were sent to crush the rebellion, were unable to effectively quell the rebellion, and by 1764, with the outbreak of the Asterian War of Secession, and Gideon's success on the battlefield, the Gaullicans were forced to give the Eastward Evadees the same privileges that they gave the Westward Evaedees, with the Eastward Evadees being granted twelve towns in their territory to govern autonomously, in exchange for no longer allowing new evadees to join, and allowing Gaullican officials to base themselves in the towns.
During the Asterian War of Seccession, both the Westward and Eastward Evadees fought alongside the Gaullicans to defend Imagua from Estmere, as both feared that the Estmerish would take away their rights and privileges. In 1768, Acon Conlan died, and was succeeded by Isay Conlan as leader of the Westward Evadees.
Final years of slavery
Following the return of the Colony of Imagua to Estmere in 1771, the agreements between the colonial government and the Westward and Eastward evadees were abrogated the following year, as the colonial government saw these evadee governments as being "imposed by the Gaullicans." This meant that overnight, the evadees' ability to govern their own communities were taken away from them, while their legal status became unclear.
Some evadee communities would flee deeper into the Central Highlands, in an effort to avoid slave catchers. Others began engaging in active resistance against the Estmerish colonial government, culminating in the 1774 Isay Rebellion, led by Isay Conlan. Unlike past rebellions, the Isay Rebellion involved both the Westward and Eastward evadees, with Isay Conlan developing an alliance with Gideon Bohannon. Isay Conlan primarily served as the political leader, while Gideon Bohannon served as the military leader of the Isay Rebellion.
At its height in 1775, the Isay Rebellion controlled much of the Central Highlands and the Upper Glen Valley, but after the defeat of Isay rebels at the Battle of New Burdale in late 1775, in part due to increased reinforcements by Estmere, Isay Conlan and Gideon Bohannon's forces saw mounting losses until they were forced to surrender in 1777.
Both Isay Conlan and Gideon Bohannon were executed for treason in 1778, but with the rising abolitionist tide, there was pressure to settle the status of the evadees. Thus, in 1780, the colonial government declared that all "escaped slaves currently in the Central Highlands" were freemen "with all rights thereof." However, this only covered the existing evadee communities, and did not affect those who escaped into the highlands after that date.
Some evadees were critical of that decision, as it did not restore their autonomy that they had under the Gaullicans, while a few communities committed mass suicide out of fear that Estmerish officials sent to inform the evadees of that decision were actually slave catchers trying to bring them back into slavery. However, most evadees would leave the Central Highlands after the 1780 decree, and would eventually assimilate into the Bahio-Imaguan community after a few generations. Thus, of the eighteen evadee towns that existed in 1780, only two remained by the time slavery was abolished: Chepiri Town, belonging to the Westward Evadees, and Bohannon Town (in present-day TBD), belonging to the Eastward Evadees.
Decline and demise
Post-slavery
By the time slavery was abolished in 1795, it was estimated that there were around one to three thousand evadees remaining in the Central Highlands, roughly evenly split between the Westward and Eastward evadees, with Estmerish officials sent to inform the evadees that slavery was abolished in its entirety recording thirty-nine villages inhabited by evadees, with a population of "no more than one thousand."
With the abolition of slavery, evadees no longer needed to hide in the Central Highlands in order to escape slavery. This led to a substantial decline of the evadee population residing in the Central Highlands, and the abandonment of most of the evadee villages: by 1811, Wyatt Millard only recorded two Eastward evadee villages "high on the eastern slopes of the Glen Valley," with one having a population of 19 people, and the other with a population of 11 people. Millard subsequently recorded six Westward Evadee villages in 1813, "each with a population of around 50 people." In both of these expeditions, Millard noted that the evadee populations were declining, with those staying "generally being older people who knew little about modern life."
During the early nineteenth century, the evadee populations remaining in the Central Highlands were generally left alone by the colonial government, due to financial considerations, although Millard advocated for relocating the evadees remaining in the Central Highlands to Lethbridge to "integrate them into Imaguan society." This policy of neglect saw the remaining evadee villages slowly decline: by 1850, only four evadee villages remained, all of them concentrated on the western slopes of the Glen Valley.
(TBC)