1704-1705 razzia of Naudia'Diva

A razzia conducted against the Kingdom of Naudia'Diva by the Honourable Company and the Humanist Vanguard, at the behest of the Benacian Union, so as to despoil and enslave the populace as a collective reprisal for the non-payment of tribute and a general history of tribal separatism and recusancy.

Tendering process for the razzia

With the decision to despoil the island and its populace being made, the rights to conduct the razzia were put out for tender. Parties had 90 days in which to respond with an expression of interest. Responses from interested parties were evaluated and a shortlist of ten preferred bidders received tender submission packs detailing the authority's requirements concerning persons to be killed, captives to be taken, and valuables to be recovered. A further thirty days was given for the receipt of these tenders after which an auction of rights was conducted at the Palace of Botha, with the contract being awarded to the ESB-Kosaken-Brunïakis-Afzælt.

With the contract being awarded, the call for volunteers now went out.

Details to follow.

Course of the razzia

Details to follow.

Aftermath

So it was that the last native king of Naudia'Diva was brought out of his hunting lodge, and obliged to watch as, one by one, all of his servants, his retainers, his kin, his wives, and his children, were brought to the place of execution which had been prepared in the courtyard. The king was restrained so as to prevent him turning his head away from the scene he beheld there where, slowly and meticulously, individuals of his long acquaintance and deep affection were defiled in every way and done to death before his very eyes by the carnifexers. Lastly, as the slaughter was finished, the king was himself given to the pain technicians so that they might commence their work. His finger and toe nails were torn out with iron pincers, his ears were cropped with a knife, and boiling water was poured onto his eyes with the scald being rubbed with salt so as to ensure that his blinding was an agony to endure. Finally he was cut off at the root, and the wound cauterised with tar and sand so that the king might know that his line was forever extinguished. Having no further use for the sorely maimed old man, he was abandoned amidst the burning buildings and the mound of his slain kin.

As for the fate of the islanders, excepting those who fled into the interior to seek sanctuary amongst the Horjinite hunters, who enjoyed a measure of protection on account of their importance to an obscure branch of Cedrism, they faced the full wrath of the conquerors. Those men who were of fighting age, who had not yet been shot out of hand as resistants, were taken to be sold by the Honourable Company in the emergent and unregulated markets of the Green in Cibola, Eura, and Keltia, on condition that they be gelded first. To this end camps were established, and further fighting ensued as the incarcerated realised their fate. In the end the uprisings were quelled and the survivors subjected to their assigned fate. The surviving adult male natives had been removed from the island by the third month of 1705 AN. The children who had been captured were declared to be protected persons. They were deported to Rothaven and processed there, receiving suitably Benacian names, along with tattoos and subdermal microchips affirming their new identities. These were distributed amongst orphanages in the bailiwicks of Elwynn so as to ensure that they would, with time, lose every last trace of their ancestral identities. The women were distributed amongst the soldiery and freebooters; afterwards being abandoned to bear the consequences.

As the island, in its depopulated condition, would not be in a position to meet the tribute requirements that it still owed, it was decided to transfer 100,000 protected persons, formerly prisoners of war taken in Amokolia, to replace the slain and deported menfolk. Moreover the island was divided into lots for general auction to corporations and individuals interested in establishing plantations on the island. In view of the devastation which had been wrought, tribute payments were suspended for twelve years so as to make the island attractive to settlers from the mainland and abroad. A commission of civil tribunes was also appointed, under the supervision of the Benacian Censorate, with a remit to divide the island into suitable bailiwicks and then oversee colonisation efforts.