Ter Mair

Ter Mair
Province of Maryland

Subdivision of:	NAL
Cities:
Capital:	Annapolis
Largest:	Balafor
Other:	Saeth Mari (oldest), Pentapolis, Frederico, Hagersstadt
Languages:
Official:	Brithenig, Kerno, Gaeilg
Others:	English, Swedish, Platdüütsch/Nederduytsch (a form of German)
Proprietor:	Dewidd Carol Cecil Calferth
Rheithur / Governor:	Rhoberth Gwer
Area:	9775 sq.mi.
Population:	4,522,043
Established:	1632, Royal Charter
Admission to NAL:	1803 (13th)

History

Geory Calferth (1580-1632) obtained from the Kemrese king a charter for the settling of a colony in North America in the northern island called Prydain New (later Alba Nuadh). The colony failed after a particularly hard winter, and Calferth sought a new charter for a more southern territory. He was granted a stronger charter for the settlement of a colony along the Potomack and Susquehanna rivers, much further south than Prydain New. He was created first Baron of Ter Mair and Avalon, but died before being able to bring any colonists over the ocean. His son was confirmed as second Baron and founded the colony in 1633. Cecil was made Lord of Balafor in that year.

Ter Mair became a successful agricultural colony and during the next century, several large settlements had developped, at Balafor (Baltimore), S. Mair (St. Mary's City), Castre Geory Saeth (Georgetown) and Frederico (Frederick). Georgetown U: The university’s foundation is directly tied to the colony’s foundation. The Catholic Church worked closely in conjunction with the Cambrian state to develop their holdings in the New World after the failure of New Britain (Prydain New). With the patriarch of Glastein’s blessing, a multinational force of Jesuits set sail on November 22nd, 1633 for the new land scouted out after N.B’s failure. The landed on March 25th (the Annunciation). The first island they landed on, they named “L’Ysl di Anynhiaradiwn”—The Island of the Annunciation. The names of those five were Andrew Blanc, Iewan Allt Gwenadur, Thonmas Saint-Gervais (some kind of Norman), Thomas Copley (English), and Ferdinando Llagunton (who needs a better surname to show he’s some kind of Anglo-Chomro). They helped establish Ciwdad Saeth Mair, the first town and capital of the fledgling colony. These five Jesuits primarily played the role of educators and missionaries in the colony. They learned the language of the local Yaocomico people so as to share with them the good news of Jesus Christ, all the while educating children brought to the colony. The Yaocomico gave the settlers their own villages to use for whatever purpose they desired. This was agreeable to the Kemrese because it meant that they had to clear less land and gave them access to crops nearly ready to be harvested. As it turns out, the Yaocomico had planned to flee farther south anyway even before the Europeans showed up. Giving their old villages to these strange newcomers was an added bonus because it created a buffer between them and the Iroquoian and Siouan groups that regularly threatened them. The Jesuits helped conclude an alliance between the king in Kemr and the Yaocomico chieftain. Anyone who converted to Catholicism had the full backing of the papacy and the Kemrese crown. The Yaocomico were recorded as being afraid of the colonists’ guns but were delighted to swap anything they had for metal tools. They taught the Kemrese how to build their “oueitchutta” (longhouses which is “witchott” in real life. The transliteration comes from Kerno), how to plant corn, beans, and squash together, and how to find choice foodstuff like oysters and clams. While they numbered 8-10k by Fr. Blanc’s calculations, they still seemed to vaguely respect the authority of the 200 settlers. The head of the Jesuit Order at the time, Fr. Vincenzo Carafa gave the school official approval. The Iroquoian Susquehannock nation which was allied with New Sweden at the time caused serious problems for the Kemrese and their Yaocomico allies. Typhoid fever and malaria were the number one and two killers of settlers in the colony respectively. European diseases absolutely decimated the Yaocomico. Incursions by the Iroquois didn’t help. The single settlers all married local women almost right away. The Jesuits encouraged marriage between the settlers and indigenous women. They believed that it was a great tool for evangelism and like their coworkers in New France, believed that assimilation into European culture was the best way to enact christianization. The epidemics that thinned their ranks made the Yaocomico desperate and scared. There’s also strength in numbers. The Yaocomico ended up moving back into their old villages which the Kemrese had settled into, and they greatly bolstered the numbers of Ciwdad Saeth Mair. Their decision to return to the villages they themselves founded provided the colony with a solidly biracial base. Historians are unsure what the power dynamic was like. The Kemrese considered the Natives as subjects of their king and thus subject to their laws. They required proof of baptism and at least rudimentary Brithenig. The locals might not have understood that the newcomers considered them fellow citizens. The Kemrese were very paternalistic. While Chief Powhatan (Wahunsenacah) 30 years before understood that the English envoys asking him to kneel to crown him meant they were trying to make him a vassal of their own sovereign, Tayac (Chief) Kittamaquund of the Piscataway might not have had a choice. He needed to protect his people from the pestilence. There are two ways we can take this. Either the position of tayac of the Piscataway (Nanticoke?) becomes a title with formal powers in the colony of Ter Mair and this continues on into the dominion of Ter Mair’s law code (like Botswana or Cameroon), or the Kemrese expect the tayac to be merely a figurehead so the position devolves into the position of the leading male of a collection of several families. Ben had a similar idea for English Connecticut. Connecticut’s few Native -identifying people, if any, are probably way more assimilated than Ter Mair’s. Either the local Algonquian dialect lives on here no matter how small or it comes perilously close to extinction only to be saved by a massive revival effort in the 19th or 20th Centuries. The Catholic Church will be the best institution to help keep Natives’ genealogy alive & the title of “tayac” going. Chief Kittamaquund sent his daughter Mari to live in the household of Llo Rheitheir (the governor sent from the Calferth family’s holdings in Ireland to manage the colony). She learned fluent Kemrese and English on her father’s orders to be an asset to her people. She married the much older Ægidius Brê, brother of the two lay sisters of Mr. Mary Ward’s order who took care of her from the age of seven to adulthood, Maryared and Mari. In the end, it didn't matter. The Yaocomico tribe in the latter half of the 17th Century was lost as an independent group and absorbed completely into Kemrese society. What gave all natives more time was that Ter Mair resisted the plantation model and the central gov’t kept landholding on the smaller side. Settler families usually had not much more land than what one family unit could handle and absentee landlords back in the metropole owned slightly larger plots farmed by a few families, African slaves, or a mix. Tobacco was also a novelty in T.M. as fortified wine, silk, & wine were the main exported goods while the average settler only farmed enough to feed themselves. Tobacco is mainly a southern Ter Mair phenomenon. Dairy farms were set up as soon as cows made their way to the New World (not an easy task). Farmers from Kemr’s original colony of Éire set up wheat farms to supply the colony with bread but corn was probably bigger business than either wheat or cows. An English surveyor and merchant, William Claiborne, set up a trading post in 1632 in the Chesapeake Bay, which he named ‘Kent Island.’ He did not have state permission to form a base here, and London was completely uninterested in pressing his claims, which infuriated him. His hatred of the Kemrese was a serious threat to Ter Mair’s survival. He agitated in Virginia for the rescue of ‘his island’ & the complete takeover of the Cambrian colony. He disappeared from the annals of Virginia history after England ceded permanently its claim to ‘Ysl Kent,’ as it was renamed, to Kemr. Algonquian words live on in the dialect of Brithenig spoken in Ter Mair. For at least the first couple of decades, the longhouse style of housing was the only way the commoners built their homes. This was probably the only point of distinction between the tiniest hamlets in Kemr and the hamlets set up in this colony. Only in the 1700’s did fully European looking settlements replace oueitchutta. No first family in Ter Mair lacks a Native ancestor. Some residents still do genuinely look mestizo. Basically, the place is humid Uruguay. For reference, the average Uruguayan is 7% black and 2.4% Native. In Tacuarembó in the north of the country, people on avg. have about 20% Amerindian ancestry. Here’s where it gets interesting. In 2005, a study found that 38% of Uruguayos may have expressed partial genetic influence from the Native populace. A ton of people moved to T.M. once word got out the indigenous of the area were friendly. It was a surprisingly diverse lot. They weren’t even all Catholic. A small group of Kemrese Calvinists & Quakers went, as did Germans and Bohemians who could have easily been Lutheran or Hussite. There were even Greeks and Jews. The school for Cambrian kids was located in Calferth Manor, the mansion built for the governor appointed by the Calferth family back in Baile Tigh Mór, occupied Ireland. It had no name so it was just “the school,” or if it did have one, it was lost to time. Carol renamed it ‘La Yniwersidad di Castre Geory Saeth.” The 1689 revolt shook up the school but didn't snuff it out, so the university has been continuously open since 1634. In 1677 the school moved into a manor home built for the residence of Lord Calferth’s brother who never showed up. This manor was known as “Kernowman’s Neck” for the narrow strip of land surrounded by water it was built near. It was originally ‘Castre Leonardo,’ but the settlers were so mad that he opted not to show up like his brother asked him to and provide the colony with a ruling presence that they changed the name of the place. A satellite campus was opened in 1704 in the village of Bohemia named for the Bohemians who founded it. Something that deserves mention: there’s a lot less slavery not just in the whole NAL, but esp. MD. There’s probably not going to be the slavery controversy where G-Town sold slaves in the 1800’s to pay its debts. There’re still black people who speak Brithenig, even Kerno & Gaeilg, but I imagine like in Argentina, the African populace here would slowly get absorbed into the Euramerican whole. Triraciality is probably pretty common in IB. Find a better translation for “Bretton’s Neck.” It was Gion Carol (John Carroll in English), a graduate of the Bohemia campus, who built Georgetown into the institution of higher learning that it is today. Upon graduation he moved to Europe to further his studies. He joined the Jesuit Order in his mid 20’s which was the most unpopular monastic order to join at the time. He was a lay member in 1753 & made a priest in ‘69. He planned on staying in Rome forever but the pope ordered him back to Ter Mair to enact an overhaul of religious education there. He went above and beyond the call of duty for what the Lateran asked of him. Something that I don’t get is why Padraic put Georgetown and Catholic next to each other. Here’s how I can think to square that circle. By the 1880’s, the Vatican found Gtown too focused on diplomacy and politics. It wanted a center of learning that would equally combine theology and the natural sciences so it gave a charter to open another school only 1.5 miles from Gtown, simply called “The Catholic University of the Americas.” Although you can find brilliant theologians, biologists, and political scientists at both institutions, they each have their comparative advantages. The US ambassador to Irân is most likely to have gone to Gtown while a professor at the Pontifical Academy of Sciences in Rome is most likely to be a Catholic U grad. My own alma mater, GWU, is probably an architectural school since Washington is mentioned on 5polis’ page as being a Virginian migrant and architect. It might not be an IR polisci rival to GU. Alt Howard was probably opened by sympathetic Jesuits or Prots to teach freemen & ex indentservs who were pouring into these towns to find work. Corcoran should exist as an art school founded by an Irishman because of the name (ÓCorcráin). Gallaudet gets mentioned in conculture so let’s say either he or loyal students open up a school there. There’s going to be a public college with 0 ties to Catholicism since the NAL isn’t a theocracy by any stretch. Throw in a JHop med school up in Balafor. Never heard of Trinity but throw it into a part of 5polis not Gtown. American could be opened much later by the Prots as a competitor to Gtown. It may very well be still tied to the Methodist Church. Ter Mair Colony’s other main crop besides corn, wheat, and tobacco is also one of its oldest: grapes. Kemr, like England, wanted its own supply of wine, silk, and olive oil so as to not have to be reliant on France & Castile as trading partners. The quest for good wine fueled the foundation of Maryland as well as Virginia. The New World has its own grapes that while in the genus vitis are their own species, vitis labrusca. The subsequent colonists after the initial 200 brought with them vinifera seedlings from all over Europe: France mostly but plenty were from Germany and Castile. The grand experiment with grape cultivation was an arduous task, but the good news was that food was plentiful and free housing was provided by the Natives. The Catholic Church had a vested interest in getting vineyards off the ground so as to supply its churches in N. America with sacramental wine. Kemr imported at first Jews from Languedoc upon the recommendation of native Jews who also spoke a Gallic language (like Angli) and had trade connections to them. Kemr spared no expense and soon, dozens of Frenchmen were being transported to Ter Mair as vintners. This was a nigh impossible task. The right soil had to be found, great swathes of land had to be cleared, and vines had to survive pestilence and disease. Unfortunately, the first vinifera planted did not do well. Most vines died, the few grapes produced yielded a distasteful wine that didn’t transport well back home (ships weren’t fast enough to get casks to Europe before they spoiled). The Calferth family, the king, and the patriarch all refused to be humiliated on the international stage. Agricultural science in the 17th Century was primitive, but not nonexistent. Vitis vinifera is sexually perfect. It self pollinates. Vitis labrusca does not. This was a huge barrier to the plan the French vintners came up with: hybridization. It took years to get the local fox grapes and European specimens to successfully pollinate each other through trial and error by cutting branches off of imported vines to graft onto local rootstock and then manually pollinating European cuttings by hand with local pollen to prevent them from pollinating themselves. Castreleon was just about to pull its funding when finally the hybrid “la Vigne Illâcomicaut” (working title: “Yaocomico” seems too hard to gallicize & they’re basically Piscataway anyway. Maybe “Le Piscataoua” for the Piscataway? April 20th: Marc suggested “Illâcomicaut.”) came into being. It took another five years of tender, loving care to produce a full harvest, but this hybrid took the best qualities of each parent and made juice sweet enough to ferment into alcohol while still able to grow in American soil. The experiment paid off. No sooner were grapes being harvested and squashed for their juice were they being fortified for transport to Europe. While the English in Virginia gave up and switched to tobacco for little effort and easy money, the Cambrians did not. The revolt of 1689’s secret funding by tobacco planters from English Virginia only helped solidify the crown’s decision to protect the wine industry in T.M. at all costs and keep greedy nobles who wanted to shift the colony to a plantation economy at bay. Tobacco symbolized a rivalry with the Saesons & didn't catch on nearly as much as it did in England. Probably in the first century of the colony or so, the settled Natives tended to be the ones to grow it, although no doubt they had African slaves and European competitors. The French were there to stay. Those loyal Jews who worked so hard to get the wine industry in Ter Mair off the ground founded “Kehila Šayin” (“wine synagogue”) after their profession (I will never find the Shuadit word for “vintner.” I’m just going to give up). It’s one of the oldest synagogues in the NAL & still functional to boot. Even to this day, services are in Anglii or Shuadit. The laborers of a vineyard are known as “montangnols.” A vineyard is only called a “mas”: an old term for “farm.” Ter Mair’s like the polar opposite of the Great Lakes. In T.M., the French assimilated fast but in the Great Lakes Region it was the Kemrese, Cornish, and Irish who got absorbed. http://mdroots.thinkport.org/library/andrewwhite.asp https://pure.mpg.de/rest/items/item_407325_5/component/file_407324/content Do the Native languages of Ter Mair have to have died out? Pls no. (La) Llan Grega (Greek Village/Parish): Greeks eventually moved in on the wine game in Ter Mair. Kemr was a close second to Aragon as a destination for Byzantine refugees. Both nations previously had been vaguely aware of one another. The Kemrese faintly held onto Romiosyne even after they were cut off from Constantinople. After the Republic was violently extinguished on Tuesday, November 29th, 1453 (in OTL it was May), the Kemrese princes opened their borders to Roman refugees. Unlike anywhere else, this host country didn’t require even the most nominal conversion to Catholicism. The first post-schism Byzantine presence in Kemr began again in 1440 with the brothers Andronikos and Alexios Effomatos (Ανδρόνικος και Αλέξιος Εφομάτος). By 1633, there were a few thousand Greeks in Kemr but only dozens in neighboring England. Plenty of Greeks already in Kemr had previously been involved in the wine trade but not too many were involved in the wine growing process, so they sent for friends and relatives who were. Most were from Cyprus. The crown threw them a bone and approved a charter for them to found an agricultural settlement in Ter Mair in 1674, but they took their sweet time prepping for the move. They didn’t land and break ground for their new hamlet until 1688. Their plot was located north and slightly east of Balafor (real life’s Boordy Vineyards because it’s the oldest vineyard in MD but another idea is Rockville). They had enough money to bring their own vines to graft onto the local hybrid. The Xynisteri (Το ξυνιστέρι) is a white grape that is one part of the Commandaria blend (ἡ κουμανταρία). The hybrid that French Jews developed in Kemr served as the red in their blend, but it wasn’t sweet enough. As such, they used the Cypriot technique of letting grapes dry both on the wine and then again after harvesting. Unfortunately, Ter Mair is more humid than Cyprus & the local hybrid requires a much longer growing season. It also wasn’t as sweet as the Mavro variety that they left behind. Production of an ‘American Comandaría’ wasn’t easy, but fortunately for the Cypriots, their native Xynisteri had natural immunity to diseases & did well on New World soil. They fortified their wine by making zivania [find a way to cambricize that] from the leftovers of the juicing process (skins, stems, seeds) and a wine distillate to make theirs even more potent than the one back home (which has an actual alcohol content of 20%). Maybe it was the novelty factor, maybe it was the fact that it had such a high alcohol content so it got people hammered, but the wine sold for high profits back home in Kemr. Llangrega became the first commercially successful vineyard. Cypriot techniques spread out all over the colony. Ter Mair wine was finally coming into its own. Wine wasn’t the only big business there. Like England, Kemr wanted silk and olive oil production up and running in their colony as much as it wanted wine. The olives died right away, but the workers joined the grapegrowers, so they didn’t go broke and starve. Silk became the rival industry to wine. Sericulture was an integral part of the Byzantine economy ever since Buddhist monks smuggled silkworm larvae and mulberry leaves out of China in hollow bamboo walking-sticks to present to Emperor Justinian in the 550’s AD. Greek silk farmers and weavers were prized workers all over Europe. The French Normans who violently took over Southern Italy and Sicily even kidnapped silk growers from Epirus, the Heptanese, & the Peloponnese to jumpstart their own warlord state’s silk industry in the 1100’s. Silk and the weaving of it into gold threads to form foufoúdion aka samite cloth (τό φουφούδιον) was the commercial domain of Greeks in Kemr and England. The silk producers sent an enterprising workforce & unlike with the guild of wine-sellers, the silkweavers matched the state’s investment. Their first problem was that the silkworm larvae didn’t take to eating the local mulberry trees, so the white mulberry (morus alba) had to be brought in from the Med. It wasn’t cheap sailing young saplings to the colony. The state expected the mixed Constantinopolitan & Heptanesian workforce to teach local Kemrese, but most already settled down to subsistence-farm. Anyone bold enough to grow a cash crop was already in viticulture. As such, sericulture stayed a Greek secret for over a century (until 1760 in T.M. but plenty of Britons grew it down south in Virginia, Carolina, & Jacobia and then up in Connecticut). This skilled workforce produced as much as it could, but it wasn’t enough to feed Cambria’s looms. American silk wasn’t subject to import tariffs so it still sold well, it was just never enough to meet demand in the metropole. The Byzantine exiles in this industry still had a reason to keep production going as such. Who knows, maybe a bit of scarcity drove up the price of silk per unit. When settlers went west across the Appalachians, Greek sericulturists went with them. Being no religious hardliners, the Greek merchants teamed up with the hardiest workers in the new colony: Catholic nuns. Commerce respects no religion. The adventurous few out there taught the nuns of the first monastery in Tenisi everything they knew about silkworms and their foodsource, the mulberry. It was the nuns who realized that the local bois d’arc (bowwood aka Osage Orange) were close enough in relation to the mulberry to feed the larvae. Although later on the monastic circuit did import foreign mulberry trees from China, this saved them a great deal on investment costs for the first few years of production. East & central Tenisi bloomed with mulberries. Englishmen in Kentucky & Connecticut followed suit. By the 19th Century, the NAL was a major producer of silk. Olive production would come back to America, but not for quite awhile. That would happen under Andrew Turnbull’s New Smyrna Colony in Jacobia in 1768. Turnbull was inept but his workers weren’t. In 1791, Tomás Mhic Séafraidh (Thomas MacGeoffrey in Scots, sometimes anglicized as “Thomas Jefferson” in textbooks), a lawyer by trade & gentleman-farmer by hobby, began a campaign to economically revitalize Jacobia colony. Olive trees spread out all over Jacobia & even into English Carolina. Olive production on the coast was decimated by hurricanes in 1898, so the Scots gov’t brought Peloponnesians to Jacobia in 1910 to revive it. They chose to bring the Koroneiki variety (η Κρητική Κορωνέϊκη). Colonial surveyors chose the extremely rural “Tíre NaLocha” (Lakeland) northeast of Val d’Osta (Gleann Aosta) for them. https://www.heirloomathens.com/2017/08/what-was-old-is-new-georgia-olive-farms-the-reclamation-of-a-lost-georgia-crop/ Llangrega was in some ways a victim of its own success. It drew people from all over the rest of the colony who wanted in on the economic action. The Cypriots, Heptanesians, Constantinopolitans: they all had to learn Kemrese to communicate with their neighbors. They married local Catholics. Anyone not in constant contact with middlemen back in Kemr slowly lost their Greek language abilities over the generations. Many even lost their Orthodox faith. As Catholics under the patriarch of Glastonbury bore Orthodox Christians no ill will, the Greeks felt no need to insulate themselves from the outside world. The Catholics’ best tool for evangelism was kindness. This is in direct contradiction to other two groups who took in a great deal of Byzantine refugees: the haughty Aragonese and belligerent Sicilians, each still crusader states at their respective cores. That being said, the middlemen back home who grew wealthy off the products of their labor never stopped sending a priest to the town’s lone parish. It was the town’s wealthiest of the wealthy and the most salt of the earth proletariat who stayed Orthodox Christian. The former, as a way of keeping their illustrious families distinct, the latter out of genuine piety. The church for the hyper-bourgeoisie became more of a social club, but for the peasants it remained a hospital for the spiritually sick. Greek mariners began permanently residing in Balafor (the largest city in the mid Atlantic) as early as 1893. No doubt they were shocked to find a priest who spoke Greek waiting for them. At around the same time, Ruthenians looking for a better life in the robust port city were happily surprised to find the same. Some lazy Greeks probably even nominally joined the Evangelical Kirk, or at least occasionally attended with their Dumnonian wives & let them baptize the children there. Maybe it was a middle-finger to the papacy. Llangrega received a new wave of immigrants from Greece in the 1890’s. Sadly enough, Llangrega took in Greeks really only during times of trouble: and mostly orphans at that. During the decades of warfare that led to Greece’s independence, orphans were transported by sympathetic Britons who thought the best place for them was in the care of Greek families. Esca, London, Castreleon all received handfuls over the course of 100+ years. The NAL took in even more. A year after the Chios Massacre of 1822, nine boys were sent to the parish priest in Llangrega who distributed them to the richest families. After both Great Wars, the same happened, but this time orphans were mostly sent to urban Balafor. Right, so now that we got my obligatory Greek presence out of the way, back to the rest of the colony. The Yaocomico were just one Native group out of several. Not all groups were friendly. The Susquehannock* Nation, speakers of an Iroquoian language although enemies of the Iroquois Confederacy, were also hostile to the Algonquian groups of the Tidewater region. In 1643, they decided to ally with the Swedes, who promptly armed them with guns and artillery. They promptly turned those weapons around onto the Kemrese, scoring a few victories over the next few years. However, alliances were made and broken fast between Natives & Europeans. The Iroquois Confederacy went to war with them. The latter were wise enough to realize that they could not fight a war on two fronts. The Susquehannock made peace with the Cambrians and agreed to respect the borders of Ter Mair & Pennsylvania. Some members stayed behind in the northeast quadrant of the colony and in PA, where over time they became assimilated. In Ter Mair, they had to share their land with Chomran settlers and the victorious Nanticoke lorded over their special relationship with the dominant power. They live on as the rural poor of western PA. Their language is critically endangered, but scholars determined that it’s closest related to Onondaga of the Iroquioan family. There should be efforts supported by the gov’t in Philly to revive the language amongst the youths. We’re probably going to need a new transliteration for their name derived from Brithenig. The Powhatan people called them “Sasquesahanough.” That “ough” can probably be “och.” I don’t know how to fake Brithenig. Secowocomoco=Yaocomico. Calvert called the area around St. Mary’s “the Finger of God”: Digito Dei. During the first 15-odd years of the colony, settlement was purely concentrated onto the Western Shore. St. Mary’s City was the entrepôt for colonists, but starting in about 1650, they began settling further and further inland. By 1660 there were four counties. By the end of 1659, there were 14,000 colonists. Due to easy access to the Chesapeake, settlers felt no need to hyper concentrate in Saeth Mari. They tended to build small hamlets with their own markets and docks. This kept S. Mari small & unimpressive. The only settlement on the Eastern Shore before 1650 was Ysl Kent, which the English crown ceded to Kemr much to the consternation of the Virginians. In 1668, only 34 years after the founding of the colony, the colonial government declared the Piscataway the head of the confederation of tribes not just on the Delmarva Peninsula, but of all Natives in the entire colony. Because the Chomro conducted official business with the Piscataway (which was more a conglomerate of groups than one coherent bloc) in their Algonquian language, this is most likely why this faction of Natives was able to weather the storm of diseases brought from Europe, and ultimately survive. They took in even the Iroquoian Susquehannock & Siouan Yesan (Tutelo) & Blackfoot* (Saponi) into their fold, which ultimately led to their assimilation & extinction as distinct ethnicities. Whatever the Hell “pied-noir” is in Brithenig. That’s what ‘Saponi’ probably means. Not to be confused with Greek «[τὸ] σαϖούνι[ν],» which means soap. Relatio Itineris in Marilandiam, by: Andrew White There are 1,939,544 speakers of Brehun in France out of about 4,552,918 people (42.6%). Port Talbot is a town in southern Ter Mair which is the only officially trilingual area of Gaeilg- Brithenig, and Kerno. In Irish the town is known as “Calafort Talbóid.” The page on the Irish part of Australia says that “port” in Brithenig is “Bá,” but that doesn’t look right. Maybe “Porto?” There should also be a healthy Gaeilgeoir community in Baltimore. Maybe also historically there was a cant with Gaeilge as its base (ditto for Buen Ayre, maybe Boston as well). December 20th, Padraic said: “Cool! I'd always figured that Kerno would be most evident in the west (Frederick Co and beyond) and Southern Maryland (Charles, Calvert and St. Mary's on the Left Bank; Talbot, Caroline and so forth on the Right Bank and the coastal counties and the islands -- probably mostly in the back country and among fishing communities). Calvert County=County Patuxent. Charles =Pamunkey. Frederick=County Constantine. Cecil=Seisyllt. Dorchester, Somerset, Worcester=Worcester is half part of Somerset and half part of Wicomico so there are only two counties, Moyaun, Assateague. The latter were from the Atlantic coast but the Pocomoke & Chincoteague tribes paid tribute to them so they should get the county name. All the Natives of this area in real life founded “Askiminokonson” in Snow Hill in Worcester. Perhaps that should be the capital in IB, or maybe something like a reservation with a Native majority. The king of the Ass. should definitely be a “county executive” aka the term for a chief in the present day. In the north and west where there’s less of a native presence, the local officers of the county are either called mayors or sheriffs. Maybe we can compromise by having all chiefs not the taiacqe (arch-chief) become non -hereditary positions while taiacqe keeps its orig. name, is both hereditary and only open to Piscataway, but becomes a purely ceremonial position. It has no political power, or maybe it sets internal policy for Native tribes left across the province, even non-Algonquian ones out west & on the N. Swede border. Piscataway is an official language in Patuxent, Pamunkey, St. Mary’s, Wicomico, Moyaun, Assateague, & Seisyllt. Because the gov’t only wanted to deal with the Piscataway, all other indigenous languages died out at the expense of Piscataway or Kemrese. Every Native, African slave owned by a Native, & colonial administrator was expected to learn it. All Siouian, Iroquoian, and Lenape languages have since died out by the 21st Century. The induction ceremonies for county executives have Native elements inc. the taiacqe giving his blessing, but the gentleman’s agreement that CE’s in maj. Native towns be Native died out by the 1920’s and is open to all. County (Port) Talbot doesn’t have Piscataway as an official language but it does have Irish and Kerno. Tayac might become an elected office on which all Natives are eligible to vote. Anne Arundel=Anna Mynne. Fred/ Costenhin has Kerno & Piscataway as official languages. Other places where Kerno is official: Pamunkey, Patuxent, St. Mary’s, Caroleth (for Caroline County because Charlotte & Caroline both come from Charles so who cares). Co. Prince Gereint (G-town) might have Gaeilg as an official language or it might just be an official language in the city, ditto for Baltimore city vs. county. There are four official languages in all counties & cities in TM: Kerno, Brithenig, Gaeilg, Piscataway. Brithenig is the official language in every single one. No county has more than 3 official languages. Although plenty of people of English descent live in T.M., it has no official status anywhere in the province. Two cities have Gaeilg as an official language (5polis, Baltimore), but only one county has it: Talbot. Talbot is the only county which officially has its name in Irish (Talbóid), although in theory any other county with a person’s name could have one (Còiseam, Áine, Naomh Muire, Searlait, etc.). Five counties have Kerno: Constenhin, St. Mary, Pamunkey, Patuxent, and Caroleth. All of those counties except Caroleth also have Pisc. as an official language, so there is a rather large overlap between Kerno and Native areas. Finally, Seisyllt, Wicomico, Moyaun, & Assateague have Pisc. Finally, the town of Llangrega has Greek as an official tongue, but this is mostly an appeal to tradition more so than an actual working language.

Administration

Government

Between 1633 and 1803, the Barons of Ter Mair chose the province's governors. After the foundation of the NAL-SLC, the voters from one of the Western Shore Riding (where the city of Balafor is located) chose the first elected governor to a three year term. Thereafter, each riding took it in turns to elect the governors. Tomas ap Iewan was the first elected governor.

In 1868, the ridings were abolished as political units (thought the terms are still used to describe the regions of the province), the length of the governor's term was increased to four years and thereafter, all voters in the province would vote for the governor.

An ammendment to the Constitution was passed in 1971 that created the office of the Lieutennant Governor.

The Charter

Ter Mair is unusual even among all the other provinces with royal connections. They still have intact the old system of the Royal Charter. The Charter provides the Lord Proprietor the right to hold the land from the Teruin. The Proprietor (originally) appointed a governor to rule in his stead and ensure the duties of government got done. Even now, though the governors are all elected, the Proprietor still has some interesting powers over provincial government, notably a veto and the right to seat a replacement governor should the elected governor die or otherwise leave office before an election. They also get to open and close sessions of parliament.

Technically, if a bill proposed within the legislature of the province were sufficiently bothersome, the Terruin could either veto a bill outright or else he could try to convince his provincial Proprietor to veto it.

The Torcaryhogon, the Lords Proprietors of the Barony of the Provinces of Ter Mair and Avalon

Between 1630 and 1803, the Barons of Ter Mair wielded considerable authority in the colonial province of Maryland. Their nearly royal prerogatives included the powers to name governors, raise armies, levy taxes and seat parliaments.

Since the foundation of the SLC, the Barons of Baltimore have assumed the (American) title Proprietor of the Province of Maryland; while at the same time losing much of the power they wielded over provincial affairs. Proprietorship remains a hereditary affair; the regnal powers remaining with the office were reduced by the General Assembly, with the assent of the Ninth Baron, to the opening and closing of the Assembly's sessions, an "in extremum" line item veto and the right to name an interim rheitheir should the incumbent die or vacate his office (and, since 1971, the Lieutenant Governor as well). Gone are the personal powers to levy taxes and raise personal armies (though there is a special contingent of the provincial Militia that serves as guards for the Proprietor's estates). The more ceremonial powers of the Proprietorship remained intact. In 1983, the fourteenth Baron exercised the long forgotten (and never rescinded) right to issue currency, ordering the Mint to produce a 350th anniversary shilling.

In 1953, the General Assembly, following the suggestion of the thirteenth Baron, amended the ancient law of succession, allowing for any future female descendants of the family to act as Proprietors in their own right. In 1958, the succession law was reworded to account for childless or disinterested Proprietors -- as the symbolic "royal family" of Maryland, the Calferths had to ensure that prospective Proprietors were keen on the job. To that end, the incumbent could name his designated heir, if any of the elder children demonstrated a lack of interest. If no interested heir could be named by the incumbent, the Proprietorship would pass naturally to the first child.

What is the Province of Avalon? you might be asking... The First Baron was intitially granted a charter to settle a colony in what is now Alba Nuadh. That effort did not pan out, so a second (and stronger) charter was sought and granted for a more southern province.

The Lords of Baltimore

1. Geory Calferth (1580-1632) r.1630-1632
2. Cecil Calferth (1605-1675) r.1632-1675
3. Carol Calferth (1637-1715) r.1675-1689 (considered the worst of Ter Mair's lords proprietor)
   In the aftermath of the 1689 Rebellion, the Kemrese king sought to control the situation by sending his own Governor to the province in 1693.
   Carol Calferth regained control of his colony in 1704, and after a false start, firmly in 1706. His second reign lasted until 1715, though he was still considered the worst of Ter Mair's lords proprietors)
4. Bendith Leon Calferth (1679-1715) r.1715 (2 months)
5. Carol Calferth (1699-1751) r.1715-1751
6. Frederico Calferth (1731-1771) r.1751-1771 (accused of having a harem in Constantinople)
7. Henrig Cecil Harforth (1758-1834) r.1771-1834 (illeg.) (1 surviving daughter, Anna Louisa)
8. Anna Louisa (1812-1836) r.1834-1836 (married Carol Bendith Calferth)
9. Carol Bendith C. (1808-1906) r.1836-1864 (MP from 1861-1863) (co-founded the Agricultural College, which would become the University of Ter Mair; opposed emancipation; proponent of the B&A Railway as well as electric streetcar companies in Baltimore, Frederick and Pentapolis). Abdicated in order to persue business interests.
10. Geory Henrig Calferth (1841-1919) r.1864-1904 (abdicated due to ill health)
11. Carol Bendith Calferth (1875-1935) r.1904-1935 (never married) largely left his younger brother Carol Geory to look after the Propietorship and the family's estates at Rivers Dale
12. Carol Geory Henrig Calferth (1879-1946) r.1935-1946 (only surviving child was a daughter, Rosalie Eugenia (1911-1972), who married her cousin and descendant of the Ninth Baron; she never assumed the Proprietorship)
13. Ricard Carol Calferth (Jr) (1907-1968) r.1946-1968
14. Dewidd Cecil Calferth (1946-2006)
15. Dewidd Carol Cecil Calferth (1971- ) r.2006-

The Rheitheirs

The Lords Governors of Ter Mair were orginally named by the Barons to manage the day to day operations of the province. Since 1805, they have been elected officials.

The General Assembly

This is the province's parliament. It is bicameral, composed of a Senate and House of Delegates. Early on, the rheitheirs had the right to dissolve a sitting parliament, witht the Baron's direct order. The Barons had the right to personally sit or dissolve a parliament until the 1689 Rebellion. Thereafter, the Barons had only the right to assent or dissent with their Acts. In 1858, the Barons gained the right of an "in extremum" line item veto over parliamentary Acts.

Administrative Divisions

Ter Mair's earliest divisions were three ridings corresponding roughly to the Eastern Shore, Western Shore and Western Ter Mair. Naturally, the "shores" refer to the shores of the Chesapeake Bay!

Ter Mair is divided into twelve centrefs or ridings (in the modern sense): St. Mary, Acockecke, Calvert, Pr. Gereint, Baltimore, Cecil, Emrys, Donal, Hewel, Tchapetanck, Wicomicky and Constantine.

Furthermore, there is the Port City of Balafor, which is governed separately from the riding of Balafor.

A map of the ridings can be found here.

Style

The authority of the Proprietor rests within the Royal Charter issued to Geory Calferth by the Kemrese king. Along with this authority came certain rights and prerogatives pertaining to the proprietorship. As mentioned, the right to levy taxes and raise an army were such rights. A title of nobility was another. In this case, the Lords Proprietors are entitled to use the following style: The Torcaryhogon, the Lord Proprietor of the Barony of the Provinces of Ter Mair and Avalon. When addressing the Proprietor, it is customary to write "The Most Noble" / "Ill Don Illystr"; and in direct address to say "Your Grace".

The Governor or Rheitheir is addressed in writing as "His Excellency, the Right Honourable"; and in direct address, "Your Excellency".

Ter Mair and Rheon Kemr

The Province and the Kingdom have an interesting and to an extent reciprocal relationship. As a charter territory of the Cambrian monarch, Ter Mair's Lord Proprietor and the Cambrian Viceroy serve as a check against the power of the governor. The Lord Proprietor, as a baron of the Terruin's realm, has a seat in Cas llo Ddon at Castreleon. Some consider this as an indirect check against the power of the Cambrian monarch: residents of Ter Mair have the right to stand for elections in Kemr and Dunein.

History

Ter Mair has never had the death penalty on the books. In 1891, a bill was proposed at the behest of a radical group agitating for the institution of a death penalty for certain crimes. Though it passed by a slim margin and was signed by the governor, the Lord Proprietor vetoed the measure, citing the province's and the kingdom's long tradition of having no death penalty.

Geography

Borders

Ter Mair is bordered by: North: Pennsylvaania West: Virginia South: Virginia East: New Sweden

The northern border is called the Mason and Dixon Line; the border between Virginia and Ter Mair consists of the Potomack River. The river and the islands thereof constitute a curious condominium between the two provinces. Most of the islands are part of the C&O Canal National Park, though a couple are privately owned.

The Land

Ter Mair extends from the Appalachian Mountains in the west down through the Piedmont and to the great river basins of the Powtomack and Susquehanna rivers, the latter of which becomes the great Bay of Chesepeake. East of the foothills, Ter Mair is almost entirely suitable for farming, and indeed agriculture has figured prominently in the province's history. Tobacco and dairy farming have been traditional mainstays. In modern times, corn and other eco-crops have become more popular.

Cities and Towns

Baltimore, upon the Bay on the West Banks, is the chief city of the province and is one of the NAL's greatest port cities. The capital city, Annapolis, is just to the south of Baltimore. Composed of five small towns and cities at the confluence of the Powtomack and Eastern rivers lies the Pentapolis is a sprawling port city and home to many government agencies, both provincial and federal. It is composed of Georgetown (Castre Geory Saeth), Rome, Anacostia, Carroll’s City (Ciwdad O’Carall) and Palisades -- it is sometimes called the American Venice on account of its canals and beautiful architecture. Benning lies to the east of the Pentapolis, along the Anacostia River, and for all intents and purposes is part of the great Metropolia. Several good sized cities dot the central portions of the province: Castrepedr, Ceisin di’ll Fforest, Frederico, Laurel and Columbia. In the west are Castre Hager and Cumbria; in the southeast is Dewi Saeth and Ciwdad Saeth Mair. In the east is Glastein New. In the northeast are Aberdeen and Havre de Grace.

Ciwdad Saeth Mair was the first capital of the province. It was a very prosperous port city and apart from Georgetown and Baltimore, had the most substantial public buildings in the province, including the huge monestary, St. David's, erected by the Abbot Patriarch himself. The 1689 rebellion against the Baron's government (thought to have been largely instigated by Virginian Protestants and tobacco planters) caused several years of strife in the province. In 1693, the King took personal rule of the unruly province by appointing his own governor. The newly appointed governor, a Roman Catholic, was in sympathy with the rebels and in order to appease them, moved the capital to Annapolis and much aggrandised that city. St. Mary's may have lost its political prestige (even after the Baron reasserted his own control of his province the city was not restored to its previous position) but not its economic importance.

Annapolis is the modern capital of the province and home of the NAL's Naval Academy. Some of the finest seafood in the world can be found in the restaurants of the city, including Ter Mair's famous crabs. The Baron's palace is located in Annapolis, across the street from St. Mary's Cathedral-Abbey. The rheitheir's house is just outside the traditional boundary of the city. Unlike the situation in many provinces, where the Viceroy is given a modest estate when he is in residence, the Kemrese Viceroy is alloted a modest wing in the Rheither's House. Stately, but the people of Ter Mair have always been of the opinion that "less is more" when it comes to upstart viceroys; for once the viceroys came onto the scene in American politics, they chaffed the starched collars of the province's gentry no end. This seemingly disrespectful, almost anti-monarchical stance should be understood in the context of the province's constitution, namely that its Barons hold the province directly from Ill Teruin himself, and thus, in a sense the Barons themselves stand in place of the King in the province. National law however has provided a Kemrese viceroy for all traditionally Kemrese provinces, and this illystr and his entourage must be put up when they go a-touring and pass through Annapolis. Nevertheless, the Baron's traditionally host a state dinner and ball when the Viceroy stops by for an official visit.

Economy

Much of Ter Mair is rural and agrarian in nature. Dairy and grain farming are common; but modern crops like soy and corn (demanded by clean fuel industries) are also being planted. Tobacco is still the mainstay of the southern counties (llo centref) of the province.

The "Government Triangle" -- between Baltimore, Fredereick and Pentapolis, the heart of which is Centref Montgomery -- is the home of many military (especially Navy) and government installations, technological and research facilities. The National Bureau of Standards, the Navy Yards, the Naval Surface Warfare installation, and the Ministry of Defense Aeronautical Research Facility are located in Centref Montgomery. St. Andrew's Air Station and several Army research facilities are located in Centref Princip Gereint.

Transportation

A well planned highway and road system is administered by the province's Provincial Highway Bureau. The Transit Authority oversees various passenger railways, tram lines and subways (in Balafor) throughout the province, and cooperates with the Consolidated Electric Railway (Fferweir Eleithrig Consolidadd) around Pentapolis and Northern Virginia and the Fferweir ddi Castre Elisabeth e Frederico in the area of Frederico, Maryland. One international aerodrome is located between Georgetown and Baltimore; and there are several regional aerodromes and airstrips in the province as well. The hub of this system is the port city of Balafor itself, which sports four main train stations, an extensive port capable of berthing the largest ocean going vessels, an efficient beltway and road system and a network of turnpikes, tunnels and bridges to divert through traffic away from the busy city center and port.

The Province's ATTM operates a number of regional and intercity passenger lines. The provincewide system is the SFfTM (Sistem Fferweir di Ter Mair), which funds and brands seven mid-length heavy rail lines with hubs at Frederick, Pentapolis and Balafor:

• Green1: Martinsburg (VA) to Pentapolis
• Green2: Castre Geory Saeth Loop
• Orange: Leesburg (VA) to Annapolis
• Blue: Pentapolis to Philadelphia via Balafor and the B & A Pentapolis and Philadelphia branches
• Red1: Pentapolis to Gwigpedrin or Philadelphia (PA) via the Northeast Corridor and Balafor
• Red2: Heinrichsburg (PA) to Balafor
• Yellow: Frederick to Balafor via the B & A Main Line
• Purple: Pont Yndad to Balafor via the WTM Main Line

The Red1 line (the Penn Central's Northeastern Corridor Line) and Red2 line are part of the NAL's network of TGV equipped rail lines.

Frederick, Pentapolis and Balafor also operate light rail / tram lines. The considerable growth along the PR-240 corridor in County Montgomery has led to the connection of the Frederick and Georgetown light rail systems, so it is now possible to travel between the two urban areas via two different rail systems. A light rail link between Annapolis and Pentapolis has been completed. It's innaugural run was held on 9 Septemper 2009 with other special railfan excursion trips slated for the weekend. Regular service commenced on 14 September 2009. The growth along the PR-50 corridor has certainly warranted its completion.

County Montgomery, County Anne Arundel, County Princip Gereint and County Balafor operate a coordinated local and intercity bus system as well.

Ter Mair's SFfTM network integrates with (northern) Virginia's own provincial passenger rail network (the Virginia Express Railway), which connects with Ter Mair's system at Leesburg and Pentapolis.

The B & A and the Penn Central railways operate long distance intercity trains between Alexandria, Pentapolis, Balafor, Aberdeen and Philadelphia, with service to the western and southern cities as well.

Culture

Music

The Baltimore Orchestra (1813) is one of the premier musical organisations in the province, and is a nationally renown orchestra. Smaller and less well known is the Rome City Orchestra (1902). While both orchestras began life as part of the provincial government's Bureau of Arts and Culture, the RCO became a privately held organisation in 1972.

Religion

Tha majority of residents of the province are Kemrese Rite Catholics

Sports

The favoured team of the Balafor region is the cricket team called the Oriol di Balafor / Baltimore Orioles. The team's mascot is an orange and black bird called a "Baltimore oriole", Icterus galbula. Pentapolis's cricket team, the Gladiators, is popular primarily in northern Virginia.

Language

Brithenig and Kerno are the chief languages of the province, although there are large numbers of polyglots in the northeastern corridor (between Baltimore and Philadelphia). Ter Mair is generally depicted as a slow-paced southern province with quaint and picturesque towns.

Ter Mair, especially the Western Shoar Riding (Counties Balafor, Anne Arundel and northern Princip Gereint) sports a peculiar form of Brithenig that surprises not only Kemrese visitors, but also New Castreleonese and other native Ter Mair residents. The Western Shoar Dialect is noted for its elision of medial vowels and consonants alike.

A short word list in Brithenig, Balaforig and English should suffice to point out the character of the dialect.

Brithenig	Balaforig	English
Balafor	Bowamer (extreme form "Bowmer")	Baltimore City
Annapolis	Mapoles	Annapolis
Centref Anna Arundel	Canny Ann Eral	County Anne Arundel
Centref Balafor	Canny Bowamer	County Baltimore
Centref Princip Gereint	Canny Pi Gi	County Prince Gereint
Columbia	Columia	Columbia City
Balaforig	Bowfereg	Baltimorese
Ter Mair	Dermar	Maryland
Atlenhig	Allaneg	Atlantic
Catholig	Caffoleg	Catholic
Ciesapig	Tciesciapeg	Chesapeake
Bi e A	Bi-Ey	B & A Railway
ceruis	tceres	beer
cas dafern	cozafren	publick house
ffuracan	fferacan	furacano
et io su	iesu	conjunctive pronoun "and I am"
gwardd	go-ardd-o	gendarm
Seth-Yndig	Sendeg-o	a local convenience mart
Oriol	Oreow (extreme form “Orea”)	a kind of creme biscuit
llo h-Oriol	ll' Ehew	The "O"s
iog bull!	eyo baw!	play ball!
helo	hey-yo	hallo
helo, ddulch	hey-yo a ddew	hey hon!
addew	vay-ya co ddios	goodbye
ag	ug	water
eo	mi	I
ty	ti	thou
nu	nuz	we
gw	guz	youse

Nuzumffath gwadd nizzel ocean; guzath gwaddir nizzel ocean?
We done got back from going down to the ocean; youse going down to the ocean?

Mizumffath llafrad ell nof, iesu ffeios!
I done worked all night, and I'm tired!

Ey-yo la! poz guz wir, in ill lew di lla marth,
Ke nuz sawrdfan cun bewr, dewran ke sa ffew lla newrth?
O, say can ye see, by þe dawns early light,
WHat so proudly we haild at the twilights last gleaming?

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