In the cultural tradition of the Kal’llan, the original peoples who lived along the banks of the Ona’llan status as part of their tribal group was determined not by blood but by place of birth in respect to the great river that they worshipped. When the early Kal’llan empires expanded beyond their original river valley the tribes they met were given the name of “Mal’ingish” or “Ne” to denote their separation from the great river. The slaves they captured were taken back to the banks of the river and the children who were born along it, regardless if the mother or father was Kal’llan, were considered to have a special connection to the Great Goddess. Thus those from the north or east born were called “Mal’llan” or “Ne’llan” and while noted to have come from beyond they were given equal status as citizens by the grace of their birthplace - a form of birthright citizenship so to speak.
With time though what changed and had the largest repercussions was the question of “Where did Ona’llan begin and end?” As originally Ona’llan was just the river in the Kal’llan valley this was expanded to include the Columbia river that ran in a few leagues from Shua’leama - then the section that ran eastward to the Ona’iluco Mountains and westward to the Pacific Ocean. Then the little rivers and streams that connected northward toward the Puget Sound. Then a little further eastward into the Ne Plateau - especially following secession attempts by the Kal’llan and Mal’llan settlers in the Yakima Valley. Expansion of what was Ona’llan steadily expanded to accommodate the imperial ambitions of the various House dynasties and bind their people to Shua’leama’s authority. By the 19th Century the question of the Ne’Ind’dan river or Snake river was being called into question - though with the true scope of the globe dawning on Ona’llan priests the question was also growing if -all- waters were derived from Ona’llan though this interpretation would be beaten back in the face of a desire to maintain the special relationship of their goddess to their own people.
So, in the early spring of 1829 when Tahwani, the appointed governor of the Snake River, was to meet with Chief Mingo Musulatabee of the Choctaw to formalize his people’s settlement the thought that Mingo’s people’s children would be of equal status - blessed by Ona’llan’s life waters - did run through his mind. After waking up that morning he took his fast and then underwent the morning ritual of purification and oneness with Ona’llan. He took a ewer filled with purified water from one of the headwaters or springs of the mother river and splashed some of its contents into his face intoning the prayers he had been taught as a child - of Ona’llan’s many gifts of life. Once completed he dressed in his formal attire, which consisted of traditional cloth tunic, beaver skin hat, deerskin poncho, and an assortment of obsidian beads painted in various colors, and went to meet with Chief Mingo.
The earlier settlers from the Choctaw that had traveled to the settlement the first Choctaw immigrants had settled into to prepare the way for the rest of their nation - the settlement was named Bokchito. Like the majority of the Choctaw who would arrive over the course of the year they primarily traveled by ship around Cape Horn or making a shorter land trek across the isthmus from the Atlantic to Pacific. Some would travel overland by way of going north to the series of trade forts established by the Hudson Company for overland trade across the Canadian territory. Those who had first arrived were members of Chief Mingo’s eastern division and were largely young men or young families from the poor sections of the Choctow Nation who largely had their way paid by Mingo and the chiefs who had aligned with him to break the soil ahead of the rest of the nation. This would be Tahwani’s first meeting with the leaders of the Choctaw nation.
Once the two sides met at the central hall in Bokchito it was no doubt a curious sight, Chief Mingo and his associates largely dressed in their own traditional attire of the Choctaw Nation - but the nation had been in contact with the Europeans and their colonists for centuries at this point so there were tell tale signs of their influence here and there among the representatives that Tahwani could see. The style of their pants, shirts, and great coats along with minor things such as some jewelry which Tahwani had seen on European envoys and traders. To be fair the influence of this style of dress was gaining traction in Onallan - especially with the British and Russians attempting to flood the market with their cheap textiles. Among the Choctaw representatives what caught Tahwani’s eye in particular was a older man who was obviously there not as a representative but as a servant to one of the chiefs and whose skin was a shade of brown that Tahwani had never seen.
This man was named George Greene, and he was an African slave. This was the first black man that Tahwani had ever seen and he was curious about George though he did not speak aloud about this. He noticed that George, though he did not know his name, was in a subservient position to one of the Choctaw chiefs and left it at that.
In at least four of the five nations of the southeast the style of slavery had overtime changed to reflect that of their white neighbors - becoming based on a view of racial inferiority and chattel. The Cherokee and Choctaw had the largest number of slaves - around 2,000 each - with the Creek owning 1,500, and the Chickasaw 1,000 roughly - numbers which attributed to 10% - 20% of the nations’ populations. Again like their white neighbors the ownership of these slaves was largely restricted to the upper class - families who had chosen to emulate the plantation owners of Southern society. The Seminoles are an exception to this as by the large their relationship with the communities of freed Africans that lived among them ranged from total integration to a vassal style relationship with African settlements.
In Onallan the status of slavery was still an open issue but had not taken on the chattel character as had those of the Choctaw - where the other Native captives they took were used for small scale labor, ransomed to their home clans, or integrated. In fact following the outbreak of smallpox the path of integration had become an overwhelmingly necessary option as clan structures broke down as smaller clans were wiped out and larger ones were greatly depleted. There was a manner of restraint within Onallan but a few clans resorted to full scale abductions of Mal’ingish and Ne settlements to shore up their numbers.
Tahwani, the Onallan bureaucrats, and the Choctaw representatives sat down and wrote out the agreement of the latter’s settlement formally which included a description of the land that would be granted to the Choctaw, their obligations to the Raven Emperor Sumac, taxes, rights and so forth. Once all was said and done the two parties shook hands and left - but not before census records for the individuals who would be settling in the territory were handed over to the Onallan accountants for translation and copying for their recordkeeping. A few days later one of the accountants went to Tahwani with an issue that had been discovered. The census included 12,000 individuals, but when going over the records for household sizes it had been noticed some households had over a hundred individuals - many of which whose names were not included. Believing the matter to have just been a clerical issue Tahwani gave the accountant his seal and permission to visit Mingo to obtain the missing information - after all his household was one of the larger inconsistencies listed. The accountant left with an English speaking translator and Tahwani did not hear anything on the matter for several days until the accountant returned.