I have more Sylvania stuff on the way, but I wanted to talk about another fictional state of mine: Mastrique. Mastrique is intended to be a much smaller state, with much less description required. That said, it's quite complex, with a horrifying but realistic history and a long tradition of rich culture.
Mastrique is a small island, smack dab in the middle of the western gulf of Mexico. It’s around 700 sq mi, and is located around
here. It’s volcanic, as the only surface level island of the Ulloa Volcanic Hotspot, a seamount chain in the Gulf of Mexico. The island is firmly tropical, with the western portion being drier than the extremely wet east side. Small sections of the island’s two volcanos, Le Chapeau d'Oiseau and Mt. Claiborne, are cooler as a result of elevation. The island is constantly hit by hurricanes.
Fig. 1: A topographical map of Mastrique. Le Chapeau d'Oiseau is in the north and Mt. Claiborne is in the South.Before Columbus, the island was uninhabited, though evidence indicates that it may have been home to some indigenous people from Mesoamerica in the 1st millennium CE. It was “discovered” by the Spanish shortly after the conquest of Mexico, who initially called it Isla San Julián, but later named it Mastrique after the city in the Spanish Netherlands. It was nominally controlled by the Spanish, but in practice it was very much left to its own devices outside of a small garrison at Puerto San Julián (later Port Julian), thanks to its remoteness, making it a popular station for pirates from all over Europe.
In 1702, the French seized the island, as a strategic stopover between Saint-Domingue and Louisiana. It was administratively part of Lower Louisiana. Initially, it was developed rather slowly, but by the 1740s the western half of the island had become a center for sugar production. This caused a tremendous development of heinous plantations, with Mastrique following the lead of the Caribbean in mass enslavement and atrocity.
As a result of the French and Indian War, Mastrique was transferred along with the rest of Louisiana to Spanish control. In practice this meant little; the island remained Francophone. As part of Louisiana, Mastrique was transferred first back to France and then to the USA. The island was initially included as a part of the new state of Louisiana, but the impracticality of this led to an amicable severing of ties in 1825 between Louisiana and its “Southern parishes.”
Fig. 2: Current Parishes of Mastrique, including two independent cities (St. Therese and Lapin)The Mastrique territory saw increased interest from affluent planters from the mainland in the 1820s and 1830s, who began migrating to the island. While the western area of the islands had been largely built up with large plantations, the center and west had been less so, excluding the area around the town of St. Cyprian. These enslavers, and the enslaved people they brought with them, began the slow shift towards English on the islands.
During the Civil War, the island was almost immediately captured by the Union. After the end of the civil war, the island, which was over 80% Black, was uniquely governed by a Republican territorial assembly, until the combination of the hardcore racist territorial governor appointed by Cleveland, KKK terror, and outright vote rigging allowed the island to be taken over by Democrats who imposed their particular version of Jim Crow. The Democratic establishment also began to push further towards English, making English the official language in 1916.
The 1920s and 1930s saw radical changes on the island. The passage of prohibition led to a huge economic boom, as the island’s relative proximity to Mexico made it an ideal spot for the liquor trade. The invention of planes made the island accessible to mainland tourism for the first time, leading to a major boom. And the discovery of oil offshore led to rapid growth in the petroleum industry. This led to rapid population growth from mainlanders, both white and Black, who settled in Port Julian and its neighboring cities of Lapin and St. Therese. This proved to be the tipping point for French on the island, which went into rapid decline in the 1920s.
The 40s and 50s saw further growth, with the development of large naval stations at Fort Bonaparte and Fort McKee. It also saw massive growth from tourism and retirement communities, particularly in the plains to the south of Port Julian. The Civil Rights Movement kicked off here as elsewhere in the South, eventually achieving successes thanks to powerful social action and favorable courts. Mastrique was admitted as a state in 1959, along with Alaska and Hawai’i.
In recent decades, the island has continued to see profound population growth. It has also become a major destination for Mexican immigration; around 32% of the population is Mexican-American and the cities of Port Julian and St. Therese are over 60% Mexican. Mastrique is these days extremely Democratic, with Democrats holding a trifecta since 1996.
Fig. 3: 2020 election results by parish
