[off game]Hey guys. Sorry if I posted it wrong, or if I didn´t get the spirit of this Factbook.. Also, English is not my first language so please, forgive any outraging grammar mistakes. The History content might be a little too long, but it is important for the forecoming international relashinships I intend to develop.[/off game]
A Confederação dos Estados Dizimistas (In English: The Confederacy of the Tenthe Payers States)
1. Geography
The Tenthe Payers States is located nailed inside the interior of a greater nation. It is surrounded by barrens preety much alike the SAVANAH by south and a huge rain forrest by north. It's enviroment and climate is a transition between both ecosystems: with poor soil, low and scatererd trees, a hot drought station during winter and a hotter rain station during summer.
2. Economy
Due to it's isolation to "civilty" durring the 20th century, The Tenthe Payers States have an almost self-suficient economy, based on catter and grain farms. Recently, some democratic reforms and the transportations development allowed a small soda industry to set up in the country. That, and the multinational conglomerations who invaded the country are responsable for a stunning economy growth recently.
3. History
The Confederação dos Estados Dizimistas (in English: The Confederacy of the Tithe Payers States) is a nation that has risen from 4 uprises in the Republic de las Bananas badlands, in the late 1930’s.
At that time, the Republic was quite a poor nation. Although it showed some development in the South and Southeastern coastal regions, the interior was as much poor and economically and socially unfair as many other Banana Republics, if not worse due to the great distance from the developed cities (filled with either an inhospitable barren or an impossible-to-transpose tropical forest).
In the region around the barrens there were 2 families, Da Silva e Das Couves, that pretty much governed the counties, controlling the economy (as they owned the cattle and corn farms that generated most of the wealth and job opportunities) and the government (as they could use their monetary power to buy the elections and extort the population).
When the patriarchs of both families died around the year of 1936, their power-hungry children began to try and expand their influence areas to cities and regions controlled by the other families. Starting from buying properties in the other’s counties, the families started to shake the balance power between then, and before they noticed, the electoral contests turned into mob wars.
The dispute between the Silva’s and Couve’s was pretty much alike most “caudillo” wars during the 19th century, with the difference that both factions were loyal to the federal government (as all their power was tolerated by the corrupt and inefficient Republic that knew it could count on the farmers to keep the population under control). But except from the fact that no party was challenging the legitimate State, it was a war. And, like in most wars, the civil population was the one who suffered the most. Raping was out of control; the poor had to work hard for their landowners and give them great amounts of their production as payment for a “safety” that they couldn’t (and weren’t interested in) guarantee. Only the preacher of the region could keep the population tempers under control, of course, willing to favor both families and keep receiving the tenth.
Until one day in that a daughter of a Da Silva’s “capitães”, Alejandro Rojas, got raped during a skirmish. Tired of a 2 years mob war that was bringing him no gain, that was the excuse Rojas needed to rebel against his boss. Taking advantage of the skirmish, he rallied the upset peasants and called them to arms. Quickly he assembled an “army” of 200 peons armed with machetes, sickles and home-made rifles, carrying their women and children. At the same time, a preacher was killed in a shooting on a Couve’s controlled region, which was just what was needed to make the peasants lose their tempers and start a riot. The spreading news of the uprising caused another two riots on different regions.
That really scared both families. As soon as they realized what was going on, they agreed on a truce to deal with the rebellions. But as more and more peasants kept running to join the rebels, Da Silva and Das Couves agreed that it was time to call for Federal help.
Unexpectedly, the Southern press did not react to the rumors of a popular rebellion crying about communism and terrorism. Instead, it reacted with sympathy to the poor population that was suffering with the complete absence of the State presence in the central region. Yet, much more concerned about peons uprising then about gang wars, the Republic sent a battle group of 25.000 rifleman, 8.000 cavalryman and 41 pieces of artillery to crush the rebellion. The fact that a third of this force was disabled on the hard trip to Mato Grosso, and the fact that the troops just weren’t prepared for battle in such area with such poor quality supply were crucial for the battle group’s defeat. But the main cause for it was surely the determination of the outgunned and untrained 35.000 man, women and children who fought the Republic’s soldiers on four different sites.
This outrageous defeat forced the Republic to admit that it was extremely expensive to deal with the rebellion militarily. And the political cost of the action was also extreme, as most of the capital citizens were blaming the government both for not taking care of the territory and for overreacting on the peasants. At the same time, the rebels’s “generals” (mostly capitães) and “politicians” (mostly preachers, as the faith in god of the rebels remained untouched), organized their fighting forces and turned the riots into 4 cities, proclaiming their independency over the landowners.
The federal government then realized that, as it was extremely costly to retake a region with no economic nor strategic value, it was more interesting to give autonomy to the region and declare it a protectorate of the Republic.
Of course, only a couple of fathers understood what was going on and realized that they had 4 States for themselves, with people used to semi-slavery and therefore, ready to be as oppressed as they’ve always been. And obviously, Alejandro Rojas, didn’t know even what “protectorate” meant. What interested him only was that he’d organized a rebellion and had an “independent” village for his own. “Why not having 4 villages for my own?” he thought. So he went to the neighboring city to claim himself as mayor. The preacher there, who had already declared himself the city mayor, calmed down Rojas with the world of God. Yet, he realized that because Alejandro was a war hero and because of his character and devotion to church, the “Capitão” would fit perfectly as a puppet governor for the preachers. And then, they went to all villages spreading the God’s will to make Alejandro the leader of all revolutionary, which was firmly believed by Rojas himself. In order to thank the church for enlightening his people, his first act was the “Tenth act”: “Evry man wif pozetons mast pay the tef of 25% too de churc”. Of course, the grammar errors were corrected later by the preachers who were the active founders of The Confederacy of The Tenth Payers States.
4. Military
Only Recently the Tenthe Payers States had developed into a State as we understand it. Therefore, the military force was composed mostly from militia equiped with farming tools which the only reason to be assembled was on beast hunting expeditions. With the democratic reforms, an army with unexperienced soliders and officers have been raised, and although the military spending is huge, the army and artillery are still very outdated and not mechanized.
5. Government Structure and Political Structure
Due to it's tradition of being opressed the, Dizmistas are a people not used to democracy or civil rights. Beeing tradidionaly Faithfull on god, mostly of the society issues were decided by the former ruler Alejandro Rojas, under the guidness of the preachers. Rojas death, as well as the late contact with the "exterior world", caused great social agitation that lead to the creation of a State (conducted mostly by preachers). The government structure is somewhat based on traditional western democracies, with a bi-chamber lesgislation sistem and a mandatory presidential government. Yet, the country's poor experience with democracy causes the political to be unstable and corupt, rarely defending people's interests.
6. People and Population
Mostly composed by farmers and a small, but growing class of industrial workers, the Dizimistas live mostly by modest means in comparisson with great western societies.
