Land of Salmon and Totems 2.0

[Malta]

Through the 1850s most travel by Europeans to Onallan was by sea, as the vast and largely un-mapped regions of North America made travel difficult for transfer of large amounts of goods to and from the empire by overland routes. Though as the decades wound on more and more travelers, mostly fur trappers, would come into contact with the eastern sentries of the Onallan. The general impression though was not lost that the White man was cutting their way westward which was concerning for the future of the Onallan peoples. Especially further south, as the Confederacy annexed large portions of the New Mexico territory and began bringing order to the various tribes they encountered Spanish and Mexican settlers that did not recognize their authority and rose up in armed insurrection. Raven Emperor Tuluth’Sumac not to be outdone by the Californians and on advisal from his council (which included the Famous British diplomat Sir Walter Dormer) Sumac began the process of creating what would be a buffer for his people.

His father Xuniiie’Tuluth had following the American purchase of the Louisiana Territory (and again prompt of Sir Dormer) by 1810 negotiated an official boundary between the Onallan Empire and the American Republic, putting it around the 110-degree longitude point, generally “granting” the Americans the bottom of the eastern slopes of the Rockies. Most of the area was arid and mountainous, but there was one significant river running through a good portion of the territory, known as the “Snake” river by most Europeans it is called by the Onallan the “Ne’ind’an” or “Water of the Ne”, the Sohsooni and Nimi’ipuu people who lived along the banks of the river usually called it the “Kiimonim” river after a type of herb that grows along the banks.

To the Onallan the Sohsooni and Nimi’ipuu were “Ne” barbarian people so in their texts their version of the name usually won out but due to the journals of Merriweather Clark the “Snake Indian” river has largely won outside of Onallan.

Similar to the Californians the pre-Columbian people of the Snake River were influenced by the Totem Potato of the Kal’llan. Due to the arid nature of the area surrounding the Snake River however the plant was grown in small areas leading to few and small urban centers developing, eventually a variety of the Totem was developed to become marginally better suited for the arid region but even still its cultivation was not comparable to their western neighbors. A series of small city-states developed along the Snake River, splitting the “River Sohsooni” and the “Desert Sohsooni”, when the Kal’llan Empire expanded east of the Cascades and settled the Columbian Plateau making tributaries of the Nimi’ipuu who lived close to the area some thought the Snake river area was the next to be incorporated by the coming of the Little Ice Age and the Falling Sun Epoch dashed that course. However, the Snake river city-states would eventually be felled by the introduction of Smallpox and such diseases introduced by European contact the majority becoming abandoned following 1589 and the region struggled for the next two hundred years to recover from it.

This was known to Sumac and in this case the Europeans had provided an answer, namely in the form of Andean Potatoes and Wheat. Unlike the fairly wet dependent varieties of the Totem Potato these new plants introduced by the Europeans (one of which was amusingly a transplant from further down the Pacific Coast) were much, much more resistant to conditions of drought and could be grown in large amounts in arid regions with less complex forms of irrigation. His father had already tested implementation of the plants in the Yakima area to success (despite misgivings among the locals) and now Sumac was prepared to do the same along the Snake River, earning himself the title of the “Planter King” among the locals.

The late 1820s were spent incorporating the region into direct rule. An army under the newly invested District Chief Xuulu’Tahwani of the Snake River District left from Onallan proper with a force of some few thousand soldiers and settlers, portaging down the Columbia river and crossing through the Nimi’ipuu lands to begin the campaign. Tahwani was part of an old stock Mal’llan family that had been clan elders and landowners around the Malingish Sound since the first years of the Raven Emperors, the honor of being the Emperor’s commanding voice over one of the largest districts of the Empire was a great honor. Getting supplies from the Nimi’ipuu city-states and tribes that already were incorporated into the Onallan network of vassals he negotiated the tributary status of the remaining Nimi’ipuu in the area before moving southwest into the Snake River proper. In lieu of sending their taxes directly to Onallan they would instead send them to Tahwani’s expedition at a somewhat reduced amount.

Traveling south along the Snake River he incorporated his first headquarters at the site of what would be the future Shua'Tseilu the City of Three Walls (Ontario, Oregon). Using this site as his staging ground Tahwani began a multi-year campaign of expanding and enforcing Onallan rule down the length of the river, alternating between tactics of negotiation and brutally crushing resistance among the Sohsooni. He quickly gained the allegiance of the River Sohsooni but bringing the full number of the Desert Sohsooni into compliance faced a few notable issues. Primarily, the length of the Snake River and surrounding arid and desert areas had been vastly underestimated by Tahwani and court officials in Shua’leama, the territory they wished to govern was much larger than anticipated. With their mastery over the river itself the Onallan could handily control the entire river’s course but there was not enough Onallan interested in settling the area. Even giving land allotments to his soldiers the Onallan Tahwani attracted to the area were largely only interested in settling along the lower reaches of the Payette and Boise rivers. Even the Sohsooni population was too small in number to cover and exploit the full extent of the territory the Onallan had laid claim to.

More settlers were needed. The answer to this problem would come from the Americans.

 

[Malta]

The Legacy of the so called “Indian Removal” policies of the United States government is often cited as part of a cycle of growth and greed. As the freed former colonists moved from the shores of the Atlantic, they looked inward toward the heart of North America, but standing in their way were dozens of Native American tribes, so that had lived in their lands for thousands of years and others that had migrated within the last few hundred years due to being kicked out by the ancestors of the Americans. These tribes were defeated, their sovereignty stripped from them and either assimilated into the country or were forced westward-into the arms of the Onallan Empire and the California Confederacy.

There is a distinct pattern though when comparing the campaigns of the Ohio Wars for control of the land of the Ohio Valley in the North and the Black Belt (named for the rich soil) Wars for control over what would become the Deep South. The Ohio Valley’s pattern of settlement was heavily influenced by immigrant settlers from beyond the original 13 colonies, with in particular German and Irish immigrants alongside those American ones from the New England and Mid-Atlantic regions. These immigrants left a legacy of small farms and pietism that would see the region tied economically to the industrialized north of the country. In contrast however, the motivations of the advance through the Black Belt was more politically motivated by the planation elite of the southern states, forebearers of the Bahamian style of mass-slavery. Large tracts of land were claimed by plantation families leading to the dastardly importation of African slaves. There was an impact eventually on the Five Civilized Nations of the American Southeast as those villages that were less isolated and had European blood would eventually take on aspects of Southern culture and economy, namely buying slaves and taking slaves themselves. In the Matrilineal cultures of these tribes the children of many slaves raped or prostituted by their owners inherited the status of slave themselves.

All of this was unknown to the Raven Emperor, Clan Elders, District Chiefs and so forth of the Onallan (be they Kal’llan, Mal’llan, or Ne peoples).

It was in the summer of 1826 when Tahwani received a visit from several curious visitors. They had been walked up to one of the Onallan forts on the upper course of the river and had asked-in English- to speak with their chieftain of authority. Receiving the visitors Tahwani realized that his visitors had a shade of skin and look not too dissimilar than his own-they were also Natives. However, his visitors dressed in a curious fashion-many had buckskin clothing not too dissimilar to his own but they wore jackets made of sheep wool-commodities that were only circulating among the landed chiefs- and they also wore clothing made of cotton but their style was much different as they wore them as plain white shirts. They did not wear an Auno hat made of otter fur like himself and lacked a Hadiki kilt made from leather and goat wool. Tahwani had embraided into his clothing raven feathers, to mark his belonging to the Raven clan.

Their leader stepped forward and in English introduced himself as Blue Hare, otherwise known as John Blue Hare to the white men. He introduced his tribe as what the white men referred to as “Shawnee” and said he represented some 400 people from Shawnee, Miami, Mingo, and Delaware who wished to re-locate to be under Onallan protection.

Blue Hare related to Tahwani the story of his people, how they had once lived much farther eastward than their current camps along the Missouri river. They had been forced westward from the Appalachian mountains into the Ohio Valley and steadily been pushed further and further westward by the English colonists, the Americans and rival tribes. He related the Northwest War fought just a little over a decade ago that had seen many of their people pushed further westward (excepting those who could prove they owned land or otherwise assimilated into the fold of the settlers). How once again now Federal officials from the United States were putting pressure again to move the Shawnee of his band, other bands and their allies to move once again. He spoke of some of his people looking to move south into Mexican Tejas but with the Comanchero taking on the Mexicans, Californians, and even the Americans who entered the area the prospect of bloodshed was discouraging. So, he and his fellows had decided to seek help from the Raven Emperor, for their people were tired of moving and wanted to find a place where they could be protected. They had traveled westward along the Missouri river, following routes taken by the Lewis and Clarke expedition and had negotiated guides from tribes they had met along the way.

Tahwani was sympathetic to Blue Hare and his people, but also realized that perhaps this was also a solution to his own problems. He had thus far struggled to populate the upper reaches of the Snake river, but perhaps Blue Hare’s band-as well as other immigrants being chased westward could help with that. Tahwani sent word westward to Shua’leama and sat down with Blue Hare to negotiate the immigration of his people to the Snake River. Blue Hare had not known that the Onallan were trying to settle the Snake River which would become something of a happy accident, but he was skeptical of having his band resettle along the river as it was much more arid than they were used to. The two parties traveled to the Twin Falls area and after back and forth agreement the two sides came to an agreement. Blue Hare’s band would be granted the territory in Twin Falls to resettle his people where they would take up a mostly agricultural role, growing wheat and Andean potatoes. The area had at one point hosted a River Sohsooni settlement but had collapsed with the introduction of Smallpox. They would recognize the authority of the Raven Emperor in exchange for their tribal sovereignty being incorporated. Tahwani would provide supplies and begin working on a settlement to be made ready for the immigrants once they arrived.

Blue Hare and his delegation returned eastward to his band of would-be-migrants and announced the terms of their migration into Onallan territory. In 1827 they announced to American Federal authorities they would sell their land to them but instead of accepting land in their would be “Indian Territory” they would instead migrate to the Onallan Empire. This news electrified not just Americans but also other Natives dispersed across the United States. The Americans for their part welcomed the news, as it would avoid bloodshed but opened new possibilities. Among the Natives though the prospect was much more mixed. Some turned their attention toward Blue Hare’s band and were curious to see if it was a success. If so they would possibly follow in their footsteps, this coming from the bands and tribes that preached peace and nonviolence with the Settlers. Among the less peace inclined however they accused Blue Hare of putting the rest of them in jeopardy and labeled them as cowards. Among the Five Civilized Tribes the response was more along the lines of the latter, but rather being because they wanted to resist with force of arms they were concerned it would see them removed all the same.

Their concerns became almost prophetic when in 1833 President Wyatt Berkshire signed the “Indian Relocation Act”.

The Shawnee, Miami, Mingo, and Delaware under Blue Hare left their lands in 1828 and traveled westward to the Snake River along the course they lost around 20 settlers from a combination of the travel, old age, and disease but the majority survived thanks to the organized efforts made by the band. Arriving at the site of Twin Falls they were greeted by a small, walled township that had not been there the previous year. Tahwani had kept his end of the agreement using engineers from his army to construct a settlement for the immigrants in part from a previous Onallan fort that had covered the entrance to the Snake River canyon. Settling into the area was not easy, unfamiliar with the terrain they stumbled dividing the land between tribes and families. They did come into conflict with the Desert Sohsooni who in once instance kidnapped a Miami family but were brought to heel by a show of force by Tahwani which lead to their return. The Desert Sohsooni around the area complained of being forced off of their traditional lands and being made to starve by Tahwani and his forced. The Twin Falls nation as Blue Hare’s band were gradually calling themselves provided a form of help to the Desert Sohsooni, they introduced an animal they had acquired from the white men: Sheep. They could be milked and were tasty to eat, but they also produced the sheep wool which they had bred to be superior to the Bighorner variety. The Desert Sohsooni accepted the peace offering from the Twin Falls nation and in time would see them prosper.

Blue Hare’s success eventually spread back across the Rockies to the other bands of the Shawnee and their allies. Those who saw the writing on the wall sent delegations to Onallan and began negotiations with the American government to sell their land for compensation. This made worse the tension between those who decided to move and those who wished to keep their lands. Among the most adamant against relocation were among the Five Nations who sent delegations to Washington D.C. to get formal recognition for their sovereignty of their lands and prevent further land grabs by settlers. However, the election of President Wyatt Berkshire in 1828 was not seen as favorable toward their efforts, and eventually culminated in the Choctaw Nation, one of the Five Nations, announcing that they would begin negotiation with the Onallan and American governments for resettlement. Not long after this the Indian Relocation Act, a motion that would mandate the nullification of the sovereignty of the Native nations within their borders and authorize the negotiation with the Californian and Onallan governments to see their removal, was put into law.

 

[Malta]

Shua’Leama: From the Journals of American Explorers

Perhaps shortly after their return to the United States the journals of Clark, Lewis, and Washburn became some of the most widely read literature in the United States. Their descriptions of the Onallan people, their cities, and culture became avidly read.

Washburn’s passages about Shua’leama described a “Venice of the Americas”.

“Upon coming upon the capital of the Indian Empire we were treated to a sight one could scarcely think lay on the same savage continent of our birth. A city made of islands of stone and wood straddling the course of two mighty rivers rose up before me as our barge traveled down the Ohleetellian [O’lietallan] River and their Ohahllian [Ona’llan] River. For our entire course traveling the river from the sea we had seen great pillars of stone but this we did not expect! Truly they were a civilization akin to the people of Mexico before Cortes’ invasion or even the Egyptians of the Old World.”

Washburn and Clark in their journals noted many stone pillars of various sizes that dotted the course of the rivers they traveled once reaching Onallan proper. Some had been laid over a thousand years ago, but many were placed within the last five hundred years, as the course of the rivers shifted some of the more ancient pillars sank so that only portions of them could be seen while others were delibertly removed over time. The Kal’llan pillar sculpting tradition had continued since ancient times, these pillars marking the boundaries of settlements, others were placed by past Emperors extoling their achievements, some were religious monuments to the gods, while others were funerary pyres. It would only be with the arrival of Lord Dormer that the intricacies of Onallan culture would be unraveled but perhaps it was the mystery of these edifices that alighted the curiosity of Americans and Europeans.

“We saw many hundreds of stone and wooden islands as we sailed into the city. Our guide, Utomoni [Youtoom’kne] described as he could in his bastard English what we saw before our eyes”

In the thousands of years, the Kal’llan had lived in Shua’leama they had slowly perfected the art of making their riverside dwelling inhabitable. Shua’leama’s first incarnation was a village of wooden stockades between the rivers but overtime developed into an archipelago as the Kal’llan first developed unique irrigation for their crops which first split up sections of the small peninsula the city originally sat upon. First, they used dirt and rocks to build their mound islands but again these developed into new forms as stone and wood were mastered but also as the course of the rivers changed. Shua’leama was very comparable to Tenochtitlan in Mexico before Lake Texcoco dried up as much of the city’s lay out was built on stone or in poorer sections wooden stilts.

“We saw what looked like locks on a canal control the entrance to the city and also protect it from the rushing current of the Ohahllian river itself. Then giant women made of stone…”

The giant women would have been the statues of Ona’llan, slabs of rock carved into the likeness of the river goddess and made to stand like the Totem Potatoes the Onallan grew and harvested, a monument to the river’s fertility but also rebirth arising from the river to begin life anew. They would be found all along the course of the Ona’llan river but were very abundantly placed in the entrance to Shua’leama which was itself a man-made lake, that way visitors would first pay respects to the river goddess before reaching the city proper.

“From the Stone Women Lake we sailed into a canal, one of many, its sides buttressed and piled with stone masonry buildings of many likes. Some were manors while others were shops or guard posts. The river traffic was filled with Indian bargemen ferrying goods and people here and there. Above us still there were more people that crossed stone bridges that crisscrossed the canal ways.”

The city was cut into over forty man-made islands of varying sizes and purposes. Some were big enough to fit a street and a few buildings while others stretched for several blocks. They were divided into several districts, the largest and most notable were the Royal District which houses the Emperor and his palace, the Temple District which honored Ona’llan and the gods, and the Governing District which housed the government offices. Between these were smaller districts, some were just for housing while others held market places. Areas for growing food or housing the city’s guard. While water travel was a major way for getting goods in and out of the city many used the city’s network of stone bridges, the city’s namesake was “The City of Bridges” after all.

As mentioned before the various districts were built on different foundations, the oldest and largest were built on solid stone that rose high above the river’s headwaters. While other sections were built on a combination of wooden poles, dirt and rocks. Virtually every part of the city was vulnerable to the rise of the rivers and their waters, so the Onallan had become expert engineers in preventing their city from being flooded. Certain sections of the city had inbuilt dams and canal locks which controlled the flow of water through many sections of the city. They had also developed man powered pumps for sending out excess water. They also had just become extremely good at raising the level of their structures as needed, the Royal Palace itself was built on top of at least one former incarnation of itself.

Clark, Lewis, and Washburn would eventually meet with several of the government caste officials of the Royal Family who delegated the negotiations with the Americans to the Raven Emperor. There was very much a fear that the Americans could potentially have smallpox or another disease, so the two parties sat in completely different rooms through the entire negotiation process.

“They were bedecked in animal furs sewn in curious ways. Most wore distinctive hats which looked much like a conch shell. You could tell the importance of their leaders by the number of bird feathers sewn into the hems of their hats. Around their necks and wrists, they wore amulets of gold and silver, but it was not this they prized the most. Always the feathers. From their shoulders they wore ponchos of cotton, leather and fur and on their waists again many worse short skirts or kilts much like the Scottish Highlanders of the British. Curiously men and women dressed the same, it was at times confusing to tell the sex of those we spoke with.”

The Americans did not gleam too closely into the gender norms of the Onallan but they would have no doubt been shocked to learn that many roles were shared by men and women similarly. As well as the status of Trans genders. Again, we see the air of mystery and wonder about the Onallan people intrigued the Americans, which would eventually be shared on the East Coast.

The opening of relations with the Americans would see traders Shua’tilich (Astoria) but unlike the explorers they would be confined as much as possible to the City of Stilts. However, with American, British, Mexican, and Russian traders entering the region importance of Shua’tilich as the main receiving center would shift northward to the Malingish Sound. Here illegal trade and smuggling would go on between the various tribes and communities of the area before eventually the government stepped in to designate a new trading center to control the flow of goods coming and going. It was also seen as some as a sign of concern in particular about growing Russian presence in the Pacific Northwest.

 

[Malta]

While Russian influence on the Onallan may have begun after their discovery 1771 that could not be said similarly for their influence in the surrounding region. While there were failed Imperial Russian attempts to officially sail the Arctic Strait (Bering Strait) in the 1740s that would not stop the eventual arrival of Russian merchants and trappers in the 1750s. These men were interested in the fur trade, the Russians having expanded a enterprise network across Siberia were only briefly halted by the sea. Rather than hunt themselves they coerced Siberian and Trans-Alaskan natives such as the Aleuts of the Aleutian Islands to hunt for them. These interactions were mixed, some Russians co-existed fairly peacefully at first but others used violence (which included kidnapping and rape) to get the Aleuts and others to get the furs. As the region was overhunted this would eventually force the Aleuts to make more dangerous hunting and trading trips across the Arctic which resulted often enough in violence by the Alaskan tribes that traded furs with Onallan. Just a year before the British ‘discovery’ of Onallan the various Russian merchant companies had, after years of fighting and merging to form the Russian Pacific Trade Company (RPTC), established the last of their permanent forts in the Aleutian Islands after a failed attempt to revolt by the natives.

The discovery of a large native civilization immediately set off metaphorical fireworks in St. Petersburg, as the Russians sent envoys to the Raven Emperor the Russian Pacific with Imperial support established a permanent settlement on Kodiak Island, Pavlovskaya Gavan or Paul’s Harbor. In response the British also intensified their presence in the region, the Hudson Company obtained a warehouse in Shua’tilich and expanded overland forts on the Great Plains. Unfortunately for the Onallan the situation in the Pacific Northwest had devolved to a point which would be highly exploitable by the Europeans.

In the wake of Raven Emperor Juugang’Xhuu’s move to Shua’leama and the defeat of the Nuuchal’ingish (Nuu-Chah-Nulth) on Nalluc’nuuchal (Island of the Nuuchal), which the British called Cook Island (Vancouver Island), the influence of the House of Raven steadily declined north of Nalluc’nuuchal as the Raven Emperors turned to their inland empire-making the tribes the tribes that had paid tribute to them slipped their bonds. Even Haida Gwaii broke off ties, despite that the line of the Raven Emperors had blood of the Haida’ingish. The various tribes returned to their competing and disorderly state of relations and this was accepted by the House of Raven who were content with simply extending economic clout into the region. The Alaskan fur trade had been until the arrival of the Europeans been solely geared toward appeasing Onallan demands, the trade of Onallan manufactured goods and foodstuff flowed north while pelts, gold and other natural materials flowed south.

The arrival of the Europeans threw the Onallan Fur Trade into complete chaos, as the Onallan found themselves unable to compete with the manufactured goods produced by the Europeans! Steel goods in particular being prized. The only way the Onallan were able to compete was through foodstuffs, which ironically, they also sold to the European forts whose merchants, settlers, and soldiers were ill prepared for the climate and geography of the region. The Alaskan tribes caught in the middle were quick to pivot and play the other actors off one another. While native merchants complained about the Europeans, the British and Russians themselves were more concerned about each other.

This was the beginning of the Great Game between the two European powers. The Russian Pacific and Hudson Company went to many lengths to inch out the other in the territory. Very quickly the two powers began bribing local tribes to align with them and attack rival merchants. The Russian used Aleuts and later Tlingit proxies to attack the British, vice versa the British recruited from the Malingish Sound clans and raided the Russians. Events came to a head when events in Europe spiraled out of control, the Napoleonic War erupted and following the Treaty of Tilsit the two powers were officially at war. For their part, Emperor Xuniiie’Tuluth elected for the Onallan to stay neutral despite urging from the British to drive the Russians out of his kingdom. He wished to send a message to the British that they had to respect the desires of him and his people. However, the ongoing ordeal between managing the involvement of the Europeans did lead to the Onallan declaring that the European trade would be restricted to Shua’gaanan (City of Three. Seattle-Tacoma, Washington), otherwise known as Trinity to the Europeans as the city had been created from three native villages joining together.

Though, this did not stop the British from using Shua’tilich as a port of operations for the Pacific Northwest theater of the Anglo-Russian War. The Englishman Theodore Brown while a trader, shipbuilder by originally trade, took the British cause to heart when he decided to sail as a privateer. He amassed a modest fleet of three ships, two brigs and a clipper, The Unicorn and attacked Russian ships up and down the coast. While not being so bold to attack Paul’s Harbor or Sitka directly he did raid the smaller villages surrounding them. He was notable for capturing Russians alive whenever possible so that he could ransom them for their safe return. The war ended in 1812 and while competition between competing companies continued the area would not become a center of conflict for several decades until the Ottoman Crisis.

Instead, the battle over the region became one of faiths. Religious groups non-native to the region were knocking on the metaphorical doors to be let in. The priesthoods of Ona’llan and the other gods throughout the country had changed since their days of the Kal’llan Houses. The positions of priesthood that had become increasingly hereditary had opened their ranks again, with the mortality rates they needed the numbers to minister to the faithful. Further, the organization of the Priesthood had moved toward centralization with the Shua’leama Temple acting as the spiritual leader but the rest of the country was divided into autonomous districts that pooled resources and tackled local issues. Raven was officially the patron of the rulers of Onallan but Ona’llan herself was still very much a part of the social fabric of the country. The Sun Cults that had been outlawed previously were accepted again and primarily had their base of power among the Yakima still.

The Priesthood was primarily interested in being a funnel for the peoples’ prayers to Ona’llan and the other gods, so the introduction of new outside faiths was not initially perceived as a threat. They largely ignored and looked down on the ‘backward’ faith of the foreigners and would only stubbornly accept a level of equality with them decades later.

In 1815 two priests arrived in Shua’gaanan, having been granted permission by Xuniiie’Tuluth to attend to their faithful. The first priest was David Cunningham, an American Presbyterian who saw the pagan Onallan people as ready for the truth of his God but also worthy of being enlightened to civilization. With charity funds and some investments, he set up in Shua’gaanan the “Trinity Indian Industrial School”. The second priest was Gregor Glebov of the Russian Orthodox Church. Gregor was a half-Aleutian priest who had administered to the Aleutians and had with other priests working under (at times in opposition to) the Russian Pacific Company. He established himself in a small building on the edge of the Russian quarter in the city and opened his doors to both Russian and Native.

The events that followed stand as a testament to not so much the faith of either group but rather more likely a cultural lens. Cunningham opened his doors to the wealthy of Onallan and pitched his school as the best way to truly ‘educate’ their sons and daughters for the future. Already many saw that Onallan was changing, their world which had stood with Ona’llan as the center had been shrunk and shifted, there were many who thought that by learning the European ways and secrets they could very potentially gain the material triumphs of the foreigners.

So, they sent their children to the Trinity School for education into the ways of the Indians, however being in no small amount of awe and jealousy of European ‘civilization’ they did not contemplate just what were the views of the Europeans toward their own culture. Cunningham and his fellow priests and volunteers at the Trinity School had a typical view held by many Americans toward Native cultures. They did not respect them, they saw the Onallan culture as while unique it was still very much ‘weak’ and ‘an affront’. Cunningham enforced a strict code of “removing the savage and educating the man’ toward his students. Yes, the children sent there were given European style clothes, beds, and such possessions but they were demanded to give up their old culture and way of life. Their native names were replaced with ‘Christianized’ names, they were forbidden to speak in their traditional language and taught English instead. Their “Soul Jars”, small objects engraved with their names and that of their ancestors, were taken and destroyed. Those who were Two-Spirits were separated by their sex instead of gender, especially among the older teenagers. If they failed these and other taboos the children were starved or beaten on a regular basis.

In contrast, Glebov preached in his small church and sometimes preached in the streets which he did in a crude but growing understanding of the Kal’llan language. He regularly engaged with the locals of Shua’gaanan and did his best to interpret the cultural views of the Onallan into the context of the Eastern Orthodox Church. When a Onallan wished to convert to the Faith he would go out of his way to also consult with their family and Clan elders before baptizing the convert. When it came into conflict the Onallan tradition of cremation was against the practices of his Church he worked out an acceptable compromise that had also been used to settle a similar dispute with Tlingit converts. They accepted the burial of their dead but allowed for the shaving of the scalp of the recent dead which was then cremated so that the different parts of the deceased’s soul could leave the body without haunting their relatives.

Eventually, the on goings in the Trinity School became public when several of the school’s pupils escaped and a riot nearly caused Cunningham and his staff to be burned alive. They were protected by government troops but were put on the next available ship back to the United States and told in no uncertain terms to never set foot in Onallan again. This set back surprisingly emboldened other missionaries to gain access to Onallan, but it was not until the arrival of the Five Civilized tribes that Protestant Christians were in the country. Unlike Cunningham though these were members of the Native American tribes and those who had lived through similar circumstances were hesitant to start their own brand of “Indian School” in Onallan, some tried but were quickly shut down by Raven Empress Sumac’Temawii, it was one of the notable actions she took after the death of her father.

Meanwhile Glebov and his mission remained and would slowly grow. The legacy they laid down would eventually see the Russian Most Holy Synod move the episcopal see created in Sitka to Shua’gaanan. Onallan would become the center of the Eastern Orthodox Church for North America, hosting the largest population of Eastern Orthodox Christians on the continent until the arrival of Eastern European immigrants to the United States in the late 19th century, eventually the Onallan Diocese would become self-governing. What would tie into the success of Glebov and the Orthodox Church in not just Onallan but the Pacific Northwest was the respect that many of the priests gave to their native congregations. Not even their counter-parts in the Catholic and Protestant religions showed the level of respect for the pre-existing cultural nuances of the PNW natives or let them lead their congregations. Not to say there were not cases against this but by the large the Orthodox priests respected many cultural aspects. Perhaps it was the fact that they were on the frozen edge of the world and they relied heavily on their native charges to survive, but still the priests were horrified by the treatment under Russian Pacific and came into conflict with company bosses and even Imperial officials.

 

[Malta]

Immigrants from Sub Continent and Far East

There is a tendency among modern portrayals of immigrant history from the Indian Subcontinent and the eastern Eurasian coast that these migrations first began in the late 19th Century with the outlawing of slavery leading to mass demands for indentured labor – in particular from Britain’s dominions in India and the masses of China. While it is true that the time period began mass migration however it was not the beginning. The true origin in fact lay with the Spanish and Portuguese merchants of their Indian Ocean and Manila Trans-Pacific trade as slaves were taken from a host of peoples who lives along the Indian Ocean and the West Pacific – from Madras to the Indonesian Archipelago to the shores of Japan. Taken as servants on their merchant ships or shipped as hard laborers to the Americas the historical knowledge of the men and women of ‘Asian’ descent in the Americas has been woefully lacking at times.

In 1769 with the discovery of California by the Spanish the ships themselves had over a dozen Asian servants and sailors, when the Spanish returned in 1771 to invade California the number was several times larger. A sizeable number of Chinese laborers were captured alongside their Spanish lords in the series of battles that made up the Californian-Spanish War of the late 18th century. In their capture they were given the choice of returning to Mexico or settling in California, of which many chose the later forming the first village of Chinese immigrants in the Bay area eventually marrying local women – all were men – and becoming assimilated into the local.

For Onallan the first mass involvement with Asian migrants actually began with the British construction of their base at Victoria – encountering hundreds of ‘Lascars’ that originated from the Indian Subcontinent. Lascars, in contrast to the Sepoys who they were often equated with, were Indian servicemen in the British navies – most commonly the British East Indian Company. While Victoria primarily was established for the benefit of the Hudson Bay Company the company and the British Government made a series of labor contract deals with the East Indian Company to provide labor for the base and Hudson outposts in the Pacific Northwest. This was due in part to the initial transportation difficulties of crossing the North American continent and concerns of hiring local labor – who had a tendency to steal company property and perhaps a desire to prevent a soft takeover by their Onallan hosts. Thus, several hundred Indian Lascars were the first Asians to find semi-permanent and permanent residence in Onallan as they built and maintained the British base and provided labor services to the Hudson Company. They were soon joined by a hundred Chinese immigrants brought by British and American sailors bringing the number by 1815.

Linguistically the legacy of the Lascars would see the entry of “Lasc’ish” into the Onallan vocabulary to refer to all persons from Asia.

Initial reaction among the Onallan to these immigrants was a mix of fascination and curiosity, here were more foreigners from beyond the sea. They saw how these newcomers interacted with the Europeans and how the Europeans treated them, and they were perplexed by the relationship. Largely these was disapproval with the disrespect and abysmally low pay the British gave their indentured workers – on one hand there was a communal concern on Onallan workers being pushed out of work but also that the British were paying the Lascars barely 5% of what the average British sailor or worker made. The Onallan questioned how the British expected for the Lascars to survive on such wages – in fact as ship crew quotas were enforced many Lascars were forced to live in poor houses and barracks where they lived hand to mouth. This concern lead to efforts to get the British and Hudson Bay Company to increase wage rates for their Lascars and provide better living conditions – which overlapped with the work of the Committee For the Relief of the Black Poor in London to provide for distressed African and Asian workers in Britain.

The general racial bias displayed by the British also perplexed the Onallan – in part because they saw -everyone- who was not born in the shadow of their sacred waters and mountains as inferior barbarians. Something which included the British. In ways it could be likened to a sort of proto-nationalist standpoint for the Onallan people as they based their citizenry on birthplace rather than by blood. The offspring of European and Asian settlers who were born on Onallan proper were extended rights as subjects of the Raven Emperor and so the budding communities of these immigrants were accepted into the Onallan fold – though this viewpoint would become contested in future decades as population pressures from all sides would force the Onallan to enact strict immigration policies. In particular with the coming of the Five Civilized Tribes.

By the large though the Asian immigrants to Onallan were accepted by the natives – in particular the religious establishment who studied the religious practices of the folk religions of the Chinese, Japanese, and Koreans as well as the Hindu practices of the Indo migrants. The Onallan religious cosmology was staunchly polytheistic which revolved around paying homage to their gods and ancestors which were echoed in the theologies of many of the Asian newcomers. In time this would provide for a new genesis of ideas as the Hindu, Confucian, Taoist, and Buddhist thought became studied by the Onallan traditional priesthood – something which was paralleled with the growth of the Orthodox Church.

 

[Malta]

Since winning their independence from the British Empire, even before, the American settlers had always had a tenuous relationship with the tribes and nations that made up the Native Americans of the East. A swinging pendulum of trade, cooperation, conflict, and bloodshed. As the 19th century moved forward the pendulum moved ever more in favor of the Americans their power and numbers becoming more than any individual First Nation could combat alone and then eventually together. Much of this spearheaded by the National Democratic Party under Governor then President Wyatt Berkshire. To say Berkshire had a grudge against the First Civilized Nations of the Southeast was to say fire was hot or water was wet, his ire largely formed from being the product of three generations of frontier settler turned plantation owner in Georgia.

With the Americans moving westward Wyatt knew that in order to strengthen his popularity first as Governor and then President was to push toward opening new fertile land that grateful settlers could take (and in return contribute to his own election to office). From the start he openly campaigned on what he saw as “setting right” the order of dominion on American soil - the ascendance of American civilization over the troublesome Indigenous peoples and the “unconstitutional” relationship of autonomy that had been granted them. Not that Berkshire was the originator of such thought but was again the product of years of political argument from past leading figures in the Republic - the earlier views of assimilating the Civilized Nations into ‘proper’ society having given way to outright removal.

Attempts to maintain their lands or at least independence was aggressively pushed forward by a majority of the First Nations but what was to become their undoing was their divided action - as the old saying goes ‘divide and conquer’. Some wanted to maintain their full autonomy, others did not mind losing their full autonomy and saw assimilation into the American culture as their only hope. Each time though they met up against the monolithic position of the US government which was able to steadily control any and all arguments and negotiations. As time went on though the increasing hopelessness of the relationship and situation with the American government became more apparent to dissident factions among the First Nations. They began to look further afield, some looked to see if going westward to the Great Prairie would be enough to maintain their independence - but others knew that escaping to lands still under the control of the same government that was attempting to remove them would only delay for perhaps a few generations the same situation they were undergoing.

What they needed was to align with a stronger power, one that they could call cousin by nature of shared blood and heritage stretching back from before the arrival of the White man.

Thus the events of Blue Hare of the Shawnee and his arrival in the Snake River region played out to surprising success. Why though did they choose to throw their lot in with the Onallan Empire rather than the Californian Confederacy? The Confederacy was undoubtedly the more democratic of the two Grand Native Nations and would grant the Shawnee greater rights of autonomy. There were three strong arguments that dissuaded Blue Hare from seeking out the Californians. The first was geography, the Californians had laid claim to an certainly expansive area west of the Rockies but the vast majority of it ranged from arid to desert the few islands of lush vegetation already claimed by the tribes that already inhabited the region or the settlers California were sending eastward. The second was the California Confederacy had settled on a much more insular policy than the Onallan, they were distrustful of the British and Americans in general, and tribes having been influenced by the latter could prove to be a splinter that would infect the rest of the Confederacy. Again, the most fertile lands in the Confederacy were situated in the Great Valley which was closed off to any sort of immigration having been staked and claimed fierce for centuries. The third and final reason was the conflict going on in the eastern territories of the Confederacy - not all of the tribes accepted the authority of the Great Valley - not to mention the raids by the Commanchero from the Tejas region.

While an imperial monarchy and smaller in size the Onallan had less of the problems than their southern neighbor. They also had the investment of the British who could yet prove to be a useful counter-weight to American aggression. The negotiations between Blue Hare and Tahwani played out and the Twin Falls settlement succeeded after initial missteps. Blue Hare sent word back east to the other Shawnee bands who followed westward to Twin Falls and helped swell the settlement’s size and the agricultural exploitation of their stretch of the Snake River. The combination of Onallan irrigation techniques and the foreign vegetables provided by the Shawnee contributed to the success and would be the blueprint for a successful pattern of settlement.

The Choctaw Nation were the next First Nation to look at relocation to the Snake River, but the path toward this was for them a microcosm of the same issues that were affecting the First Nations. The Choctow were divided into western, eastern, and southern divisions a legacy of their origins as separate tribal entities that had banded together in the face of increasing European influence and competition with other nations. Each division exercised a high degree of autonomy and competition over who would, or could, speak for the whole nation to the American government was fierce. Two leaders emerged in the eastern and western divisions and they also represented starkly different ideals for the future of the Choctow. Chief Nathan Greenleaf of the western division favored increasing adoption of American culture and integration into the American economic system as a way to prove though they were not white they were a part of American society as equal members. In the eastern division opposed to him was Chief Mingo Musulatabee who was much more a traditionalist and desired to preserve their traditional values and culture - though he did allow Christian missionaries into his lands and adopted American business skills and agriculture.

With news of the success of the Twin Falls settlement Musulatabee moved to gain recognition from the American government as leader of the eastern division and sell their lands in exchange for assistance in moving westward and also a great amount of manufactured goods. Using the latter he was able to more or less bribe leaders in the southern and western divisions to join them in moving to the Snake River much to the condemnation of Nathan Greenleaf and those who wanted to keep their land and integrate into the American economy. He argued greatly that staying and forcing themselves to give up much of their traditional values would not end well for their people, the more they clung to the Americans the more voice and independence they would lose until there was nothing left to lose.
While he was derided by his opponents his views would become prophetic as the Indian Removal Act would mandate the removal of Greenleaf and his people.

Musulatabee and his people faced blood, sweat and tears on their march westward but thanks to the supplies bought from the Americans and Onallan the journey was less disastrous then it could have been. Much like the arrival of Blue Hare, Musulatabee arrived to find a pre-constructed settlement ready for many to move into and start from there - the settlement along the Big Wood River - whereupon the Choctow settled into dividing the area for their settlement. The resettlement of such a large nation led to a new groundswell of support in the remaining nations to seek movement to the Onallan territory and slowly more entreaties for negotiation were made to Shua’leama especially by more traditionalist factions which wished to preserve their way of life and culture. Even those such as Greenleaf’s faction were forced to negotiate with the Onallan following the approval of the Indian Removal Act by Berkshire’s government which mandated the removal of the nations.

It was the immigration of the more thoroughly assimilated tribes that saw the first sign of conflict between the Onallan and the newcomers and threatened to upend the entire enterprise completely.

 

[Malta]

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.