EARLY HISTORY
The land southwest of the Mississippi was first explored by Europeans as early as 1528 - by the late 17th century, the territory was consolidated in the conglomerate known as the “New France”. Under French rulership, the state would largely be considered a sector of the Louisiana territory.
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Capitalizing on the fertile eastern sectors of the land, several influential families, including the Grays, Braithwaites, and Dowds, had settled the region by the end of the 18th century - bolstering the trade of cotton, tobacco, and slaves across America.
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In 1803, the government of the United States purchased a sum of 530,000,000 acres, west of the Mississippi during the Louisiana Purchase - the land was thusly divided into the Territory of Orleans and the District of Louisiana. Only nine years later, the Territory of Orleans was given statehood, and named the State of Louisiana - and shortly thereafter, a portion of the territory west was thusly named the State of Lavinia, marked as the 19th State of the United States of America.
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The early 19th century saw an era of prosperity for the area. Steamboats flooded the Mississippi River, flooding trade into Flat Iron Lake and through the heart of the State. The city of Saint Denis, built in the image of the famed New Orleans, became a city of the arts, culture, commerce, and old-world tradition. By 1840, Saint Denis had become the capital of not only the state, but also of the slave-trade in the South; second only to its sister-city of New Orleans.
THE ANTEBELLUM AND THE CIVIL WAR
During the Antebellum, the wealth and prosper of Lavinia and her people only grew. The state - especially the area surrounding Saint Denis - flourished, boasting a large population of American land-owners, and inviting a great deal of immigrant laborers. By 1860, railroads had connected most of the state’s prominent townships, from Lemoyne to New Austin County.
However, this prosperity sat on the edge of an encroaching storm. In 1861, as Southern states seceded and the Confederacy coalesced, Lavinia stood at a crossroads. Though many of its aristocrats were sympathetic to the Confederate cause, the state’s government adopted a cautious stance. On April 14th, Governor George A. Burnham formally declared Lavinia neutral in the escalating conflict. This decision sparked outrage in some quarters and speculation in others—rumors whispered that Burnham and his administration harbored Unionist leanings, a claim that would later be vindicated.
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The pivotal moment came in 1864, during a fierce engagement in the Scarlet Meadows near Rhodes. A Confederate detachment from Lemoyne County faced a well-equipped Union brigade. To the shock and fury of many, Governor Burnham sent aid not to his fellow Southerners, but to the Union troops. The resulting Union victory cemented Lavinia’s role in the broader war effort, fracturing the state’s social order. In towns like Rhodes, resentment lingered, a nostalgic loyalty to the Confederacy that, in some corners, smolders to this day.
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​When the Civil War ended in 1865, Lavinia stood bloodied but intact, its bet on Union loyalty ultimately rewarded. It retained its place in the United States, though not without deep internal scars—between the proud industrialists of Saint Denis and the disgruntled traditionalists of the countryside.
THE YEAR OF 1885
As 1885 dawns, the State of Lavinia teeters at the edge of transformation—culturally, economically, and politically. Though two decades have passed since the formal end of the Civil War, its shadow still stretches long across the land. Scars linger in soil and soul alike. For many, the war remains unfinished, etched into memory with the bitterness of loss and the ache of what was once fought for. Yet time does not wait. Progress marches forward, indifferent to nostalgia.
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In the years following the Union’s victory, Lavinia experienced a surge of economic revival. Trade routes reestablished themselves with vigor, ports once marketing the trade of human flesh now roared with steam and commerce of produce and textiles. Saint Denis in particular became a magnet for opportunity, welcoming waves of immigrants from Europe, Asia, and the Caribbean—each carrying with them new languages, customs, and philosophies. With this infusion came friction and change: the once-monolithic culture of the old South began to crack under the pressure of new ideas.
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In parlors and public houses, on cobbled streets and porches, a revolution of thought had begun to stir. For the first time in generations, women in Lavinia were lifting their voices in public discourse. The suffragette movement found fertile soil in Saint Denis, led by educated daughters of industry and former abolitionists alike. Their demands—once unthinkable—echoed in town squares and newspapers, unsettling the entrenched male establishment.
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European fashion and etiquette, carried by ship and wire from Paris and London, took root among the city elite. Corsets were loosened, hemlines inched scandalously upward, and men dared brighter colors and tailored cuts. The genteel gentry of towns like Rhodes and Valentine scoffed at these new trends, clinging desperately to the trappings of a bygone age. Still, change seeped into Lavinia—slow, inevitable, and indelible.
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Those who had once been silenced, the immigrants, the freedmen, the laboring poor, continued to face bitter inequality. Wages were paltry, housing squalid, and justice uneven. Yet, despite these hardships, hope stirred. Communities formed and a fragile kind of pride emerged. In tenements and tobacco fields, across factory floors and ship yards, they built something enduring: not just survival, but a vision of something better. A future no longer dictated by the old bloodlines.
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To the west, however, the frontier burned hot and lawless.
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New Austin County faced a crucible all its own. The recent cholera outbreak had ravaged the town of Armadillo, reducing it to a shell of its former self. Bodies stacked in open mass graves, the last serving Sheriff among them. With no firm hand to guide it, the county fell into anarchy. Outlaws ruled by fear, and the once faint trails to Tumbleweed now echoed with gunfire and the shadow of circling vultures.
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Convoys bearing medicine, food, and lawmen often vanished, prey to both desperate natives defending their last lands and bands of merciless raiders. The sun-baked hills of New Austin became a no-man’s-land, a testing ground for ambition, violence, and grim resolve.
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And so, beneath the gaslit streets of Saint Denis and amid the scorched plains of the West, Lavinia stands divided. Between past and future. Between the iron grip of tradition and the uncertain promise of change. This is a land where fortunes rise and fall with the toss of a coin and dreams realized.
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It is here, in this restless, fevered state on the cusp of something new, that our story begins…
ADDITIONAL RESOURCES
