The Northeast District
~The Founding Union of Magicatdom~
The Northeast District is the founding district of Magicatdom. It contains the human states of Maryland, Delaware, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine, as well as the District of Columbia, and the Magicat Capital territory of Merlin’s Landing. The District's capital is Boston, situated in Massachusetts Bay.
As the most urbanized district in the country, Magicats and humans live in close quarters all throughout the province’s urban areas. This has led to a unique infrastructure arrangement unseen in the rest of the country, with many major Northeastern Magicat hubs integrated directly into human cities. The most famous of these are the separate boroughs of New York City, once independent cities in their own right, Magicat Boston, and Magicat Philadelphia. The District of Columbia, formed by the United States in 1790, subsumed the Magicat community of Bon Sanctuaire, which is now the DC neighborhood of Georgetown.
The Northeast District is serviced by the Royal Chariot Rail Company, a regional, nationalized rail service that runs lines all throughout the District. The first rail stations evolved in conjunction with the Northeast's growing population, combined with the need for travel between the many cities and preserving the centralizing power of Merlin's Landing.
The district's most prestigious school is Yancy Yale Magicadamy, situated on Long Island in southern New York. Framed by picturesque rolling country and rushing rivers, the elite of Manhattan and Merlin's Landing study at Yancy Yale for an escape from the noisy city.
HISTORY
Settlement
The first Magicat settlement in North America was founded on Merlin’s Landing in 1603, an outlying island in the Long Island Sound. With the establishment of the Veil, the island was shielded from the view of humans, and became the founding city of Magicatdom.
As European colonists spread throughout the region, Magicats quickly and effectively set up their own colonies, which subsisted off human settlements. These settlements often faltered, as they relied on similar human establishments to stay alive in the harsh weather.
Magicats faced opposition during settlement from the Eastern Puma and the Wejack, who inhabited the lands before. The Puma, a controlling influence in the region, saw the annexation of Merlin’s Landing as a threat, but hoped to quell it through diplomatic means. The leaders of the tribe met with the Magicats on the island, establishing a treaty between Merlin of Magicats and the Puma chief – in exchange for proceeds from the harvests and foraging each year, the Puma would peacefully rent Merlin’s Landing to the Magicats.
Whilst it preserved short-term peace, the treaty was widely unpopular among the growing Magicat population, who saw it as trading one form of oppression for another. Merlin’s Landing grew more and more crowded, and as more magicians crossed over from the old world, the Magicats soon felt the need to expand.
While the Puma were reluctantly willing to rent more land—within reason—to the Magicats, they were also aware of the growing threat that Magicats posed. Magicats had little regard for the Puma, viewing them as lesser and a threat to their existence. Relations continued to break down over the following years, with Magicats forcefully settling more and more land beyond the borders of Merlin’s Landing. Fringe attacks soon became common, consisting of sporadic lynchings of Puma by Magicats, and retaliatory Puma attacks on Magicat settlements.
Magicats had better dealings with the Wejack, which disliked the Puma and often came to temporarily align with Magicats. The Magicats would continually take advantage of this friendliness to surround and intimidate the Puma, especially as relations between Magicats and the Puma deteriorated.
The settling of New Amsterdam by the Dutch in 1624 further pushed the Puma out of the region. Realizing that the threat had expanded in scope, the Puma declared the Magicats a hostile presence and demanded they leave. The Magicats refused and went a step further, declaring war.
In a night that would later be known as ‘the massacre of Merlin’s Landing’, several Magicat battalions, with the help of the Wejack, snuck out under the cover of night and laid ruin to major Puma settlements. Through the use of fire and water magic, they created several large-ranging fires and floods that killed many Puma.
The ensuing Magicat-Puma war lasted several years and ended with the Puma agreeing to cede more land in 1628, their claim bound west of what is now the Hudson River. Over the following decades, the Puma would be forced to cede more and more territory, eventually reduced to small reservations in the freezing north.
The Wejack had been promised an allotment of land east of the Hudson in exchange for helping the Magicats, but this bargain was almost immediately reneged on. They found their land increasingly restricted as Magicat settlements expanded throughout the region now known as Southern New England. Wary of what had happened with the Puma, Magicats took care never to let the Wejack gain enough of a stake to rebel against them. Though the Wejack voiced disappointment and anger over being pushed north and west out of their native wetlands, they would soon find themselves in the same position as the Puma—restricted to a tiny plot of land far away from Magicat settlements.