New Frisia

The Royal Crown Colony of New Frisia is, after the integration of Novikov, the largest crown colony of the United Kingdom.

History

Discovery and Settlement

Originally sighted by Sjoerd Visser, an explorer under the Dutch flag, the lands now known as New Frisia were given the name Nova Frisia by cartographers in honour of Visser’s homeland of Friesland in the Netherlands. In the cooler South Pacific, the islands originally drew Europeans who sought to capitalise on the rich fishing grounds off the eastern coast, where many established whaling ports and outposts for the collection of seals and other maritime creatures.

By 1834, the British government had become interested in the sturdy timber of the islands as a resource for the Royal Navy’s construction and maintenance programmes. In November, 1834, William Huxley was appointed British Resident and set about the organisation of logging camps and rudimentary villages and settlements upon the northeastern coast. Concurrently, a resurgent France had begun to push for settlement of the western islands and coastline, which offered arable farmland and temperate climates for an agriculturally-based colony. Despite some significant French settlements by 1840, the British government annexed New Frisia and in order to quell any French discontent, allowed the French settlers to remain upon the condition of accepting British law and customs.

Development in the 20th Century

New Frisia depended primarily upon agricultural exports to Great Britain throughout much of the late 19th and early 20th century with little capital arriving for serious investment in manufacturing industries. That economic relationship created a dependency of New Frisia upon Great Britain, a dependency that first came under strain during World War I when the British government diverted most of its funds into procuring weapons and funding the war. During the Second World War, British war plans all but saw the abandonment of New Frisia, leaving its defence to the United States, which preferred instead to concentrate on the threat of Japanese invasion of the geographically closer territories of Australia and New Zealand. While the Japanese never did invade the island, the abandonment of the mother country and the Allies left New Frisians bitter and as such they quickly realised their independence from Great Britain and began to turn towards another former British colony to the north for economic and defence relations – the Commonwealth of Azazia.

Towards the Modern Day

While Azazia had industrialized rapidly, New Frisia had faltered and staggered as the result of government policies that stymied investment outside of the agricultural fields. By the late 20th century the New Frisian government had effectively gone bankrupt and appealed to Imperium for aid, which it received upon the condition of ceding its sovereignty to the Crown of Azazia. Today, Imperium continues to oversee the Royal Crown Colony of New Frisia despite growing resentment of the local inhabitants, in particular after the Novikovian people were granted a significant degree of autonomy while New Frisians remained under the thumb of the Oceanian Crown.