The Aqumis Free State

The Aqumis Republic, formally known as the Aqumis Free State, is the smallest of Minecraftia's three nations, having been founded during the early Fourth Era. It consists of a series of tropical islands. The population is small, equal to the Imperial city of Helmira. A president is elected every 5 years. Two trade companies, the Western Trade Company and the Eastern Trade Company control the large amount of trade that brings Aqumis it’s wealth. Aqumis, relative to its size, is the wealthiest nation in Minecraftia.

History

The Republic began life as a remote Alcanzari colony, where a small elite ruled over a large slave population who had been moved to the island from mainland Alcanzar to tend to its chocolate plantations, under the Alcanzar Trade Company or the A.T.C.. During the early Fourth Era, a violent slave rebellion erupted when the future first president of Aqumis, a slave by the name of Carlos Guerrero killed his masters at the Cortez Plantation, after which he, together with the other slaves of the plantation, stormed and captured the undermanned Ruiz Sea fort. Using the fort's vast armoury they began a campaign of freeing the other plantations on the numerous islands that made up the Aqumis colony. The governor's militia was comprised of a small force of the Alcanzari Provincial Army, the vast majority of which were slaves themselves. The majority of the slave soldiers of the militia quickly mutinied and sided with the rebels, joining Guerrero's cause.

The governor, Lord Fernando Mendoza, managed to organise a small civilian home guard of the free citizens of the islands capital, Puerto Esperanza, and they prepared for a siege. A ship of the Alcanzar Trade Company was used to send an emergency message back to the Alcanzari capital city, Solleria.

Upon receiving the news of the rebellion, High-Lord Vinkhuys personally rode to the Empire's capital, Helmira, for an audience with the Emperor Charles I Viromaro. He was however denied, only receiving a brief audience with the Grand Chancellor, due to rising hostilities between Kythira and Imperius during the Great Naval Arms Race. The Crown, deeming a bunch of breakaway slaves a minor threat that the Kythirans could easily snuff out, only gave the Alcanzari High-Lord access to two small ships of the new Mediori Fleet and 100 infantry soldiers of the Viromaro army. This "fleet" was send out two months after the High-Lord had arrived in Helmira.

When this force eventually reached Aqumis, Puerto Esperanza had already fallen. The governor, Lord Mendoza, had been imprisoned by the rebels, but most of the upper class population of Aqumis had been butchered in a series of raids across the islands' settlements and plantations. A short battle occurred on the beaches of Puerto Esperanza, where the Kythiran army of 100 soldiers was thoroughly defeated by the Freedmen Armies of Guerrero, which at this point numbered around 8000 men. The latter, having found the historical epic 'Historia' in the library of the governor, had found inspiration in the Federation of Provinces rudimentary forms of Republicanism in the Second Era, and had taken up the title of President of Aqumis.

When the Crown learned of the defeat, the Alcanzari High-Lord was blamed for the disaster, due to both not properly informing the Tower about the severity of the rebellion, as well as not having send their own soldiers into battle. High-Lord Vinkhuys however had feared that sending the Alcanzari slave armies into battle against the rebels would pose the significant risk of them defecting to the Republic's side, and potentially bringing back their revolutionary ideas back to Alcanzar.

President Guerrero send an envoy to the High-Lord, offering peace and the safe return of Lord Mendoza, as well as allowing all surviving free Alcanzari to leave Aqumis, in exchange for formal recognition of Aqumis as an independent state. Originally the High-Lord refused, until the Grand Chancellor sailed to Solleria and forced him to sign it, seeing the new Republic as a potentially useful tool against the Imperius Reich.

President Guerrero ruled for another 15 years before dying of a tropical illness. After his death, the first democratic elections were held in Aqumis, resulting in the victory of President Rosera. He instituted a new constitution, in which a president would be elected every five years, and no president could serve for more than three terms, in memory of President Guerrero. For the next few generations, the Republic slowly grew, taking in escaped slaves from across Minecraftia. During the reign of Emperor Charles II Viromaro a massive slave rebellion broke out in mainland Alcanzar. During the Massacre at Summerhal they successfully managed to assassinate Emperor Charles II and Grand Chancellor Marquess Bernard Montclair, but High-Lord Javier Vinkhuys escaped.

This prompted the Aqumis Senate to pass the Act of Liberation, which amounted to a full invasion of the Kythiran province of Alcanzar to take out all of House Vinkhuys and free all Alcanzari slaves. The Kythiran government was still in chaos after the death of its two most senior members, the Imperial Legion had become crippled after the rule of Charles II's father Henry III, who in his paranoia had executed most of the Legion's most competent commanders, and the latter had soured the Empire's relations with the Imperius Reich massively, so there was little reason for them to aid the Kythirans.

For a month the Aqumis military suffered little resistance. The successfully took several Alcanzari towns and fortresses, and liberated 87 plantations. The armies that High-Lord Vinkhuys send after them either defected and joined the Aqumis army, or barely resisted before retreating. In the second month, Solleria was besieged, and the High-Lord and his family became trapped for three weeks, unable to communicate or reach the outside world. During this siege, the Aqumis ship "Libertad" used the ruins of the Summerhal Palace as target practice, leading to even more extensive damage, especially on the sea side.

It was only the combined forces of the newly crowned Emperor Charles III, and his Grand Chancellor Edward Von Roterstein who managed to break this siege, with the aid of several Ardoraghi armies. Outnumbered in both manpower and technology, the Aqumis forces were forced to abandon the rebels, retreating back to Aqumis, ships packed to the brim with freed slaves. In the end, the rebellion was crushed, the instigators publicly burned in front of the White-Gold Tower, High-Lord Vinkhuys survived but was forced to cede a large island in the Dødehavet Sea to Ardoragh, which was put under the rule of Duke Ulv. Charles III responded to the Aqumis aid and active participation in the rebellion with a heavy hand. He put a full embargo on the islands, called back the Kythiran ambassador and ordered the preparations for Operation Lost Sands, a full invasion that would return Aqumis as a Alcanzari colony. The Grand Chancellor could not however convince his older brother, the High-Lord of Ardoragh, to lend his ships and men for such an invasion, and so it would take at least a couple of years for the Imperial Legion to return to it's strength from the reign of Emperor Philip. Before this happened, Emperor Charles III died in the Night of Lightening, and his successor, his younger brother Emperor Alexander, an opponent of slavery, restored relations with the Republic and ended the embargo.

Due to the Lotrican Genocide in the late Fourth Era the Republic saw a great influx of refugees from the former Duchy of Lotric. It further gained a lot of wealth during the subsequent reign of Emperor Louis Viromaro, whose extremely high taxation pushed the province of Ardoragh to begin secretly using pirate routes, usually through Aqumis, to escape the Emperor's taxes.