Izurdis

Izurdis Izurdis is a republic in the southeast corner of the Brianian continent and the northern end of the Caribbean, bordered on all sides by the Brianian Federation.

What became Izurdis began as seasonal settlements for Basque fishermen venturing southward. The name comes from the Basque for dolphin. Before too long, intermarriage with coastal women had produced some permanent settlements. All the Basque and Breton stuff so far suggests that the New World was first explored piecemeal in a small-scale, informal way, and that the big powers of TTL took a rather long time to send big expeditions and start big colonies. So let's say that the Basque period lasted from c1500 to c1550, when the Navarran crown (such as it was) sent agents and documents and soldiers to superimpose a colonial government onto these mixed settlements. The Navarran colony sort of limped along, expanding organically through natural growth and participation in local indigenous politics.

Around 1600, Aragon became the suzerain over Navarre and took over its modest colonial enterprise. Izurdis was the biggest Aragonese colonial project, but not the only one. A new population of colonists overran the old settlements and founded new ones, both on the coast and inland. They did not have the symbiotic relationships with the natives that the original Basques had.

Izurdis was caught up in the wave of revolution that separated the eastern colonies of Briania from their mother countries - 1800 or so. Its leaders did not see eye to eye with those leaders who formed the Brianian Federation. The Izurdians refused to join the federation and tried to set themselves up as a southern rival - their ambition was to be the second power of the continent and control land in the Mississippi basin and far to the west, at least to the Rockies if not the Pacific. The Izurdians lost at least one major war over the Mississippi, costing them all their western claims, and they failed to get all they wanted in the eastern border disputes. The country was confined to this smallish territory in the southeast, plus the island provinces.