Trati

 

Tobacco and the Slave Trade

The threat of Varaso loomed large under Aleixo and his conquests, and while ultimately he wouldn’t attempt an invasion of Trati, the fear that he might re-strengthened the league. Trati by this point was still a relatively poor place, and did not threaten Varas or its trade, which it could conduct through ports near the Narrows or places like Tunis. It wasn’t until the introduction of tobacco from below the Arega in the 19^th century that Trati’s fortunes would change. The wet subtropical climate of Trati and Baluarte were perfect for growing the crop and it quickly became a valuable commodity as large tobacco plantations emerged in Trati and Varaso Baluarte. Both regions began the massive import of lizardfolk slaves, captured by Chazhdurm slavers and sent north through the Aregan slave trade. Trati then began to become wealthy off of the tobacco trade, entering the crosshairs of Varas once again. Varas began to sanction piracy against Tratian vessels. Most were based out of the Varaso port cities of Enzim and Tunis. Tratians began to hire Tira Vellan mercenary ships to protect their shipments, but the growing expense had begun to make their tobacco no longer competitive with that from Varaso Baluarte. In 1911 a combined force from the states of the confederacy and Tira Vellan mercenaries blockaded and besieged the cities of Enzim and Tunis. Both cities were sacked, and in exchange for a large sum of money Enzim was made a free city which would enter into the confederacy while Tunis would remain Varaso and Varas was forbidden from sanctioning piracy. Enzim would serve as an important bulwark at the mouth of the Inner Sea, and a constant bugbear for Varas. Varas would attempt nine sieges of the city between 1920 and 2306, never succeeding in taking the city. The Tratians had been able to take the city easily because Varas had done little to fortify it, not viewing it as having been in any real danger, while upon its independence, Enzim was immediately flooded with people from the Tratian states and its defences built up from the confederacy’s common coffer to ensure it would remain independent, and it gained a reputation as “the unsiegeable city”.
  Hair of Tunis would flee from Tunis to Enzim in 2026 to seek refuge from prosecution in Varas. Here he would proselytise his new faith to the people of Enzim. Many of the other states of the confederacy were likewise unhappy with this new faith as Varas had been, but by this point Enzim was to important, to well defended, and too powerful to simply be forced to acquiese to the demands of the more powerful states of the confederacy, and the leaders of the city embraced and welcomed the new faith. The confederacy could have cut off the city and left it to its own defence to fall eventually to Varas, but the leaders of the confederacy were too invested in keeping Enzim, even if it would become a sticking point. Over the next two centuries the relationship between Enzim and the rest of the confederacy would strain at several points over religious matters, with Enzim being made to return runaway slaves from other confederate states (though noteably not Varaso ones) and the Moina Agreement, in which all confederate states were made to legalise the Furanist faith and allow its free private practice in exchange for the states being able to ban public practice and proselytisation, and Enzimian acceptance of magical practice in the rest of the confederacy. Importantly, though, slaves were not guaranteed the same freedom of religious practice. As Furanism’s direct prohibition of slavery was largely incompatible with the confederacy’s slave plantation economy, the religion spread little outside of Enzim.
 

Enzimian Wars

Enzim would grow ever more distant and ever more frustrated with and frustrating to the rest of the confederacy. After the slave revolt of 2284 on Kingfisher Isle and the Trento Affair in 2289, in which Coparan spies were caught attempting to steal the secret of gunpowder from the Enzimans, Enzim officially left the confederacy. Following this, the Moina Agreement was voided and many states in the confederacy criminalised Furanism. The Varasos laid siege to Enzim the next year in 2290 in what would become a sixteen year siege. In 2355 when Enzim invaded Varas, the Tratians initially remained out of the conflict, not wanting to aid either side. After the conquests of Varas and Alvoradã this would begin to change, but it wasn’t until Cónsulo's decree of abolition in 2369 that confederacy would get involved. After the decree and creation of the Holy Enzimian Empire, Baluarte and Tirivade, both heavily reliant on slave labour, dissolved their ties to Varas and sought entry into the confederacy. They were given entry despite their lack of cultural history with the Tratians and Varaso language and identity, and the Tratians entered the wars. The Tratians ultimately came out relatively victorious from the wars, Tirivade and Baluarte remaining members, but the wars had interrupted the Aregan slave trade, and the subsequent conversion of the Chazhdurms meant it would not resume following the Peace of Útrecos, causing Tratians to sail further south in order to continue the further import of slaves. This led to the Tratian discovery and colonisation of the island of Tucucu south of Oecumene. The Tratians stayed out of the War of the Holy League, Enzim by this point now being far too powerful for the Tratians to meaningfully challenge. However, by the war’s end, they and Tira Vella were the only non-Furanist states in Oecumene. Their tobacco, however, continued to sell, even as those they sold it to abhorred the slavery that produced it.
 

Modern History

Things in Trati thus remained stable for the next half century or so following the end of the War of the Holy League until the Great Plagues began. As populations collapsed across Oecumene, demand and commerce similarly declined, and the Tratian economy entered freefall. As the plagues ended and the other states began to recover, Trati was still reeling, especially in the wake of the Chaspethian Exchange and the start of tobacco cultivation outside of Trati and Baluarte. This led to an Enzimian invasion of Baluarte in 2606. Tira Vella came to the aid of the Tratians. The Tratians and Tira Vellans won the war against Enzim, but Tira Vella, which had abolished slavery themselves in 2576, and which had effectively ceased on the islands centuries ago, forced abolition on the Tratians, nonetheless. Trati was, however, able to remain non-Furanist and independent of Enzim, and was formed into an official state, the Union Republic of the Tratian Isles and Baluarte, in 2610, fashioned after the Tira Vellan system, still at this point a rather aristocratic system closer to an oligarchy rather than a modern republic, though less centralised. The slave trade no longer allowed, Tucucu was no longer particularly valuable to the Tratians, and they forced the now freed lizardfolk to the island and it was made independent.