Jacobia
| |
| Subdivision of: | North American League |
| Cities: | |
| Capital: | Atlanta |
| Largest: | Atlanta |
| Other: | Savannah, Augusta, Columbus, Athens, Macon, Roswell, Albany, Marietta |
| Languages: | |
| Official: | Scots, Gaeilg, Cherokee (regional recognition) |
| Others: | English, Breathanach, Creek, German, Gullah Creole, Castilian |
| Lord Governor: | Alister Sharpton (Bishop) |
| Area: | 57,906 square miles |
| Population: | 8,145,381 persons |
| Established: | 1752, Royal Decree |
| Admission to NAL: | 1803 (18th) |
Jacobia takes its name from Fort King James. From 1721 until 1736, Fort King James was the southern outpost of Scotland in North America. The "James" was James IV whose personal badge became the basis for the Provincial Banner.
Today, Jacobia is one of the most important provinces in the NAL, a major transportation hub as well as home to dozens of major corporations. It is also the location of the CBI Academy at Stone Mountain.
Administration
Government
Currently, the province of Jacobia is administered by a Constitution re-written in 1981. Among other things, the new Constitution did away with the unicameral Provincial Assembly in favor of a bicameral Provincial Parliament, of which the Assembly is half (the other half is the Provincial Senate). Formerly, cabinet officials were elected directly, whereas now they are chosen by the Lord Governor from among members of Parliament. Both Assemblymen and Senators serve for two year-terms, whereas the Lord Governor and Lieutenant Governor serve six. Assemblymen are elected by individual counties whereas Senators, the Lord Governor and Lieutenant Governor are selected in a general province-wide election.
In practice this means that the 133-member (one per county) Assembly is dominated by a plethora of political parties, which only rarely achieve a majority. The Senate, on the other hand (with 55 members), is largely divided between the Whig and Progressive Conservative parties.
Judicial authority lies in a Supreme Court, whose membership was increased from seven to nine in the new constitution. Its members serve for terms of two decades. This is also true of the eleven Jacobia Courts of Appeal, which have province-wide authority. Individual counties choose their own local magistrates, usually by election.
The 1981 Constitution also codified what had been a tradition regarding the province's League Senators. Jacobia elects one Senator in a general election, with the Assembly (now Parliament) electing the second, and the Lord Governor appointing the third. Traditionally, each Lord Governor appointed his predecessor. Now, upon leaving office, a Lord Governor automatically takes his seat in the League Senate. Thus, Arnold Shicklegruber is currently a Senator in Philadelphia and will be succeeded by Alister Sharpton. Appointment now only takes place if the seat becomes vacant.
Administrative Divisions
See also Jacobia counties.
Jacobia has 133 counties: Appling | Atkinson | Bacon | Baker | Baldwin | Banks | Barrow | Ben Hill | Berrien | Bibb | Bleckley | Brantley | Brooks | Bryan | Bulloch | Butts | Calhoun | Candler | Chattahoochee | Clarke | Clay | Clayton | Clinch | Coffee | Colquitt | Columbia | Cook | Coweta | Crawford | Crisp | Decatur | DeKalb | Dodge | Dooly | Dougherty | Early | Echols | Elbert | Emanuel | Evans | Fayette | Franklin | Fulton | Glascock | Grady | Greene | Gwinneth | Habersham | Hall | Hancock | Harris | Hart | Hazzard | Henry | Honstadt | Irwin | Jackson | Jasper | Jefferson | Jenkins | Johnson | Jones | Kinchafoonee | Lamar | Lanier | Laurens | Lee | Liberty | Lincoln | Long | Lowndes | McDuffie | Macon | Madison | Marion | Meriwether | Miller | Mitchell | Monroe | Montgomery | Morgan | Muscogee | Newton | Oconee | Oglethorpe | Peach | Pierce | Pike | Pulaski | Putnam | Quitman | Rabun | Raintree | Randolph | Rockdale | Schley | Screven | Seminole | Spalding | St. George | St. Matthew | St. Paul | St. Philip | Stephens | Stewart | Sumter | Talbot | Taliaferro | Tattnall | Tara | Telfair | Terrell | Thomas | Tift | Toombs | Treutlen | Troup | Turner | Twiggs | Upson | Wainwright | Walton | Ware | Warren | Wayne | Wheeler | White | Wilcox | Wilkes | Wilkinson | Worth | York
History
Massive English and Scottish settlement began in the year 1732 with James Oglethorpe, an English MP, who promoted the idea that the area be used to settle people in a debtors' prison. On February 12, 1733, the first settlers landed in the HMS Anne at what was to become the city of Savannah. This day is now known as Jacobia Day, which is not a public holiday, but is mainly observed in schools and by some local civic groups. In 1752, Jacobia became a royal colony of Scotland. Jacobia's first constitution came in 1777, but was later changed.
At its founding, Jacobia was a colony where slavery (although not penal transportation or indentured servitude) was outlawed. However, the profitability of slavery in neighbouring Carolina meant that the ban was overturned only 16 years later, opening the colony up to the use of slave labour. In fact, Jacobia was soon swollen with slaves (as well as a continued influx of indentured servants and penal labourers) as huge land grants were bestowed on certain families. The political influence of most of these "Southron Bourbons" continues to this day. By the late 1700s, however, the Bourbons were facing increasing disapproval from the fruit of the Scandinavian Enlightenment. In 1799, the first Jacobian Emancipation Society--dedicated to the freeing of all slaves and indentured servants--was founded in Savannah (then the capital) by Abram Baldwin and John Hall (who later signed the Solemn League and Covenant).
Of all the provinces, Jacobia had perhaps the fiercest debates and sometimes actual fights over the issue of Emancipation. Once the institutions of slavery and servitude were finally abolished, a vocal minority agitated for their return. These became the nucleus of the nascent Union Party, but the more extreme members soon joined the so-called "Black Star" faction. They were most likely the ringleaders of the riots which set fire to the city of Atlanta in 1876.
The effort to rebuild that city in many ways shifted the center of political gravity in the province. Its prominence as a transportation hub steadily increased, and its local government was able to attract many corporations and institutions. The capital moved from Augusta to Atlanta in 1904.
Nevertheless, the Bourbons regained considerable ground as a result of the "Marie Phagan Murder Case" which began with the murder of thirteen-year-old Marie Phagan in the basement of a pencil factory in Atlanta, Georgia on April 26, 1913. Leon Frank, a Jew who was Superindentant of the factory, was arrested and convicted of the murder on flimsy evidence but amid great furor. On June 20, 1915 then Governor Ion Slaton (a Conservative Democrat) commuted the sentence of Leon Frank, from death to life in prison. Slaton spent many hours pouring over the files of the case, and was convinced that Frank was innocent. Resurgent Black Star Societies made their presence felt all over the province. Later that same year, Leon Frank was lynched by a mob during a routine prisoner transfer. Tomos Watson, a writer of inflammatory editorials who had urged "the citizens of Jacobia to take matters into their own hands" was elected Ion Slaton's successor as Governor. Watson, a Whig, was openly a member of a Black Star Society.
It was in the wake of the terrible child murders by Geoffrey Dahlstrom in the 1970s that the political landscape of the entire province was shaken up. From the 1950s through the 1970s Whig Lord Governors and Whig-led coalitions (usually including the Unionist Party) had dominated the province. Much of this was seen as something of rivalry between the Whig-majority Savannah and the Progressive Conservative Atlanta. But demand for reform in the wake of these killings eventually swept James Erroll Carter Jr. into office with strong Socialist and Ecotopic support. On his watch a new constitution was written and accepted. Carter served for two terms. He was succeeded by his son, James Erroll Carter III for two terms, making the province in effect led by the same family for over twenty years. During the second Carter's administration a constitutional amendment was passed forbidding any one person from holding office as Lord Governor for more than one term. At this point, Rosalynd Carter (the Lord Governor's mother) ran but was soundly defeated by Whig candidate Zebediah Miller
In 1992, Howard Provo, one-time Mayor of Augusta and firebrand in the Progressive Conservative Party, won the office of Lord Governor. Among Provo's more controversial policies was the disbanding of the Jacobia Bureau of Investigation (created in the 1950s during the administration of Lord Governor Jozef Mac Carthaigh) in favor of the Provincial Police of Jacobia--the former tarnished by accusations of abuse in response to the Anti-Snor Movement in the 1960s, 70s and 80s.
Provo was succeeded in 1998 by Prussian-born former actor Arnold Shicklegruber who entered politics in the 1990s. Shickelgruber (who starred in several extremely successful action films, helping make him a millionaire) has been seriously tarnished by accusations of being involved in the so-called "Watergap" scandal. Tapes of Shicklegruber with his opposite in Cherokee Nation openly discussing war with Florida in the year 2000 came to light and were published by the Philadelphia Inquirer. The resulting furor in Jacobia resulted in a deeply contested Gubernatorial election in 2004, resulting in the election of Progressive Conservative candidate Bishop Alister Sharpton. The first Catholic clergyman to win election to the Lord Governorship, he is also the first such official of color in Jacobia's history. Once an agitator for the Socialist Party, his public image softened considerably in the previous decade.
Lord Governors of Jacobia
| # | Name | Party | Term of Office |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Ion Slaton | Conservative Democrat | 1908-1914 |
| 2 | Ion Slaton | Conservative Democrat | 1914-1920 |
| 3 | Tomos Watson | Whig | 1920-1926 |
| 4 | ? | ? | 1926-1932 |
| 5 | ? | ? | 1932-1938 |
| 6 | ? | ? | 1938-1944 |
| 7 | ? | ? | 1944-1950 |
| 8 | Jozef Mac Carthaigh | Progressive Conservative | 1950-1956 |
| 9 | James Erroll Carter | Whig | 1956-1962 |
| 10 | James Erroll Carter | Whig | 1962-1968 |
| 11 | James Erroll Carter Jr. | Whig | 1968-1974 |
| 12 | James Erroll Carter III | Whig | 1974-1980 |
| 13 | James Erroll Carter III | Whig | 1980-1986 |
| 14 | Zebediah Miller | Whig | 1986-1992 |
| 15 | Howard Provo | Progressive Conservative | 1992-1998 |
| 16 | Arnold Shicklegruber | Whig | 1998-2004 |
| 17 | Alister Sharpton | Progressive Conservative | 2004-2010 |
Some of Jacobia's Lord Governors
Ion Slaton
Jozef Mac Carthaigh
James Erroll Carter Jr.
Bishop Alister Sharpton
Geography
The northern part of the province is in the Blue Ridge Mountains, a mountain range in the mountain system of the Appalachians. The central piedmont extends from the foothills to the fall line, where the rivers cascade down in elevation to the continental coastal plain of the southern part of the state. The highest point in Georgia is Brasstown Bald, 4784 feet; the lowest point is sea level.
Borders
Jacobia is limited by:
North: Carolina.
West: Cherokee Nation.
South: East Florida.
East: The Atlantic Ocean.
Economy
Although Jacobia's cities are important transportation hubs for the entire southern NAL, with Savannah one of the nation's largest ports and Atlanta the site of one of the world's largest, most busy aerodromes, the majority of the province is agricultural. Peaches, peanuts, cotton and tobacco are the most prevelant crops.
Culture
First and foremost, Jacobia is a blend of opposites. It has some of the wealthiest families in the nation, along with some of the poorest. The modern hustle-bustle of major cities is less than half an hour's trainride from small farming communities, many of which lack televisions or even phone service. It is the province with perhaps one of the strongest Ecotopic Parties in the NAL, and more Black Star Society members than any other, along with Neocapitalists, American SNOR-ists, and hardcore Socialists. This even extends to music, with homegrown "country" music flourishing right next to classical symphony orchestras. One of the tensions in Jacobian society is between those who love the native sounds and rhythms of the province and those who seek to expand those.
Jacobia has also been the birthplace of many significant artists, including:
- Rey Charles, musician
- Margaret Michelle, author of Fled With The Wind (a famous novel about Atlanta prior to the Great Fire)
- Hamish Dickey, poet
- Alicia Walker, author of The Color Indigo (a novel about a young Afroe difer woman in the 1890s)
Although it might not count as culture per se, rugby and football are avidly followed throughout the province, with basketball only slightly less popular. Literally hundreds of millions of pounds are spent on these sports within Jacobia every year, and the Atlanta Wolves are one of the major rugby teams in the NAL. Jacobia is also home to major football (the Atlanta Badgers and Savannah White Hawks) and basketball (Atlanta Comets and Savannah Chevaliers) teams.
Jacobia is the home of whummlin, a warm-weather sport invented when Scottish colonists played their game of "sweeping the ice for a rock" using equipment from the Native game of chunkey. Whummlin has not developed into a professional sport, but many high-quality amateur players are drawn to the province. Savannah is the original host of the major NAL tournament, and the permanent host of the most prestigious international tournament. For many Jacobians, participating in whummlin is a exercise in civic pride.
