Sons of the Conquering Exodus

Sons of the Conquering Exodus: Tales of Culture and Exploration

As the twilight of the Middle Age set upon the peoples of Europe, one nation was reaching out, stumbling into the inky dark oceans of the world, setting out for new lands. Even as the funeral pyres of the plague burned in Lisboa, Lusitanian explorers set out for that great unknown, exploring the coasts of Africa and the vastness of the Atlantic Ocean. In that time of death, three new territories joined the patrimony of Lisboa- the Azores, Madeira, and the Canarias, three seemingly insignificant island groups that, aside from the production of sugar in the latter two, seemed to offer little to the Lusitanian crown. Despite this, Lusitania was poised to exploit these discoveries- their Reconquista had finished in 1188, a sharp contrast to the ever-raging wars in the center of the Hispanian Peninsula.

But these islands were an accomplishment, insignificant as they seemed. Europe had cracked open the door to the wider world, to cultures and people radically different to their own, to the possibility of trade and the economic revolutions that would come as a result. Over the next few decades, Lusitania would explore, mainly down the coast of Africa- the Cape of Good Hope was passed by 1407, and Lusitanian explorers would reach India in 1414, with the landing of Henrique da Aviz at Calicut. The news raced back to Lisboa- they had found India, cities larger than anyone could imagine, and a cornucopia of spices, sugar and other widely desired trade goods.

And to the west, a New World was discovered by two men- the north, explored by Pedro Lavrador and the south, explored by Diogo Gomes. They were followed up by the legendary Amerigo Lopes, who mapped out the small islands of the Caribbean along with the great coasts of much of the northern continent that bears his first name. This discovery, even more than Asia, would come to shape the history of the world in centuries to come…

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In the time of the ancients, it was said “Woe unto the conquered”. And in the latter days, the African, understood this sad maxim, as a person pressed into good-ship, stripped of his humanity in the pursuit of profit. And the Indigen joined him- a conquered man, stripped of old traditions and pressed into chains, dying of plague and work in mines and fields, dying like the old traditions of his motherland.

The life of an African in this new age had many possibilities, few of them good. For the blessed few, there were new opportunities of trade and war, serving and integrating into the proto-colonial system, becoming the elite that shipped the slaves rather than the underclass that became them. Some fled to the jungle, but often found themselves killed by the inland tribes for fear of slavers (or for that ever-primal fear of the unknown). Most found themselves bound in chains, and this, of all the sufferings, was worst of all.

Across the ocean, these unfortunates were shipped, many passing as they passed to new lands. To be made a good, property, alienated from the idea of humanity as nothing more than a white man’s tool- this was the fate of many, many Africans. The elites converted to the white man’s God early and spoke the white man’s language- they went into the jungles to take slaves, to convert tribes, to spread the white man’s taint into Africa, to take men and make them into property. The elites, however, married and propagated, and foreigners came as well- these became their own people, their own class, and those that were not taken eventually joined it as well. The African peoples, in this age of Discovery, were split permanently- those who were taken, those who were unknown to the slavers, those known refugees who retreated into the untouched lands, those who ascended into the elite, and those who fought in the white man’s armies across the world. These were the fates of the African man, now but a piece of a greater machine of commerce.

And what was the fate of the slave in the New World, in America, Gomesia and the Caribbean Isles? For most, it was a great and terrible task, lifelong and meaningless, with little chance of freedom or personal gain. They worked in fields, in conditions unfit for serfs, and suffered a thousand sufferings, bequeathing unto their children the same. In some colonies, only men had been shipped- each generation was new, and knew the great fear of capture and the hell of the passage, and died dreaming of distant Africa. Others had been born in the New World, and knew little of liberty other than that they did not have it. The land of sufferings was their mother land, and it had birthed them kneeling, in chains, to the master that owned them. And out of this land of sufferings came many cultures, speaking the tongue of slaves, whispering of Africa and indigenous traditions, taking from each culture that touched them and growing into a new people, a people born in chains and forged in fields.

Many of these slave-born men, over the course of a life, were sold, separated from kin and spouse by the cold calculations of commercial exchange. In the New World, the Negro was not a man but a tool to be used, bartered and expended like any other form of capital. He was bred and raised and taken and given, tortured and worked- but as an expendable resource. Some masters were kind, taking slaves as familial property and treating them with more dignity than they were born with. Most were ambivalent about the slave- he was property, but cruelty was not needed to make him work. Some were cruel tyrants, who enjoyed wielding power over the Negro and the Indigen, who loved the crack of the whip and the burn of the brand, who found the screams of the suffering ones akin to music in their ears.

And yet, some of these men had with them the blessing of Providence, the luck and cunning needed to escape. And these men fled into the hills, into the forests, away from the whip and brand and chain, and found Liberty there. Some joined the tribes, the Maroons, and raided the fields and blended into the jungles, reclaiming the age-old existence they lost in slavery. Others fled to the free towns, to the refuge cities, and joined the rich culture of freedmen and renegades in the hills and mountains. Some became the local elite, became owners of slaves themselves- the lessons of sufferings lost to the siren song of power. Some became soldiers, and found themselves serving the European in the army instead, across the world in some far-flung land. Others bought their freedom, and became a middle-class, joined by poor whites and overseers, becoming craftsmen and free farmers. But the fruits of this great Providence were few; they were lucky compared to their brothers, and while the bonds of slavery were severed, so was the kinship they felt with the slave. The grandsons of freedmen, in their time, would forget the slave, raised only on stories of suffering, and would forget their brothers in the fields, beholden to the system they now profited from.

Thus was the New World in the age of Discovery, and thus was the maxim true: “Woe unto the conquered”.

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This is basically a series of little vignettes focusing on an alternate Age of Discovery. It starts a century early, but progresses much more slowly- the events in this series will end around the early 18th century like OTL. I know this is a bit disjointed- I do not know whether it can truly be considered a time line, in that it is not linear and has no established point of departure. It will not have characters, per se- I am shit with dialogue, for example.
 
Sorry for the wait- it's been a hectic month.
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The New World was not discovered on purpose- indeed, its discovery by Lavrador, Gomes and Lopes was not, at first, on purpose. They were also not the only Europeans in the New World at the time- ancient Vinland had survived in the north on three islands- this came as a great surprise to Lavrador, and then to Europe at large.

The thrumming heart of the New World was not untouched, bountiful America, nor the steaming jungles of Gomesia- it was the Caribbean, the small islands and beautiful oceans, where money was made hand over fist on the whipped and branded backs of Indigen and African slaves. It was here that much of the commerce, much of the action and much of the culture of the New World exploration comes from. The conquests of the mainland were launched by these islands; entire European wars were financed by their profit. In these halcyon days, the Caribbean enjoyed a bounty and pleasure she would never see afterwards; her fortunes swelled early, to great and untouched heights, before crashing as Europe ended the First Colonizations and went out to pillage the rest of the world.

The first to take land in the Caribbean were of course the pioneering Lusitanians, who landed at Ilha Negra (at the city known as Porto Rico de São João, known colloquially as Porto Rico) and slowly colonized the islands known as the Leeward Isles or the Muitos Santos (Many Saints). These islands gave Lusitania an early dominance of the sugar trade, and were generally the first stop of Lusitanian ships on their way to Floriana. It was from their base at Negra that they supplied the colonization of Floriana, and it was from their base in the Muitos Santos later on that provided for the conquest of the Tahuandinse [1]

The next to arrive were the Aragonese, sailing out of Bordo. They only colonized one island group, largely by mistake, and remained small players in the Caribbean game. Despite this, the islands were a proud talking point of the otherwise Mediterranean-focused nations, and did bring in some income to the crown.

The second wave of Caribbean colonization came in the late 15th and early 16th centuries, as the Albionese [2], French and Germans burst into the scene, hoping to capitalize on the rich trade coming through Lisboa and Bordeaux.

The Germans came first in the second wave, taking many of the Windward Islands, settled along with much of the Gomesian Carribean coast. The Germans, much like the Lusitanians, focused on plantation production and trade; the islands were annexed into the Neu Venedig colony and were run, unlike said colony, by the German Imperial West India company. They were the terminus in the German slave trade that ran from the long line of coast dominated by the German Imperial Africa Company. They also served as the base for the German conquest of the Jochatem [3] Peninsula.

Next came the Albionese and the French, rounding out the colonizing powers (with the exception of minor colonial powers like Scandinavia or Navarra). The Albionese first settled three islands in the eastern Caribbean- these would bring a lot of revenue to the crown through lucrative sugar and tobacco production. They also settled the island of Coban [4], the base of their southern colonial efforts in America.

The French took Aiquis [5] (a portmanteau of Ayiti and Quisqueya, pronounced ay-kees), making a capital at Saint Domingue (also known as Cap-Francais or Port Royale) and the Bascaire Islands [6] (known to some of the Lucayan natives as ba-ha-ma). In Aiquis, the French vassalised and dominated the caciques, dividing the island into the five Taino divisions during their colonization, despite the death of many of the Taino. From Aiquis, the French jumped to the mainland with the famous conquest of Anahuac (Anaouaque) [7]. Aiquis and the city of Saint Domingue soon became centers of the transatlantic gold trade, transferring Mexica gold back to the port of Brest and from there the rest of France. Aiquis was also a hub of the French slave trade based out of the Ivory and Gold coasts, transporting slaves to Anaouaque, the Bascaire Islands and the rest of Aiquis.

Finally, there was the Pirate Island of Jamaica, site to several failed European colonization expeditions and home to most of the pirates that roamed the Caribbean. Unlike Tachsagen in the Orient, Jamaica had no colonial overlord, and was generally an anarchic island for much of the period. The great colonial powers, when not scheming to outcompete their rivals, make plans to conquer Jamaica. Thus far, the pirates have raided Anouaque, Jochatem, and all of the islands of the Caribbean, making a lot of money working for the competing powers and raiding the lucrative trade industries. Some of the more intelligent, settled pirates have even moved inland to start plantations. The pirates lived in a golden age of libertinism and spendthrift plundering- and that age, so long as the colonial powers draw wealth from the New World's Mediterranean, showed no signs of stopping (at the time of the map, 1569)
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1) The Inca
2)Brits- Language is recognizable- more Anglo-Scots than English, with large Norse-Gael influence. Britain was unified by Scotland, but had a lot of French and Norse cultural influences as well, producing a Scots Britain rather than England->Britain.
3) Yucatan; Yokatlan-> Yocatam (Luso) -> Jochatem
4) Cuba
5) Hispaniola
6) Bahamas
7) Central Mexico- Anahuac

caribbean tl map.gif
 
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Danks- love Old English (and the typeface as well ;) )! New update (hopefully) soon; subject- the isle of Jamaica!
 
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