Garbanzo

Garbanzo is an Oranjestad colonial village located on the western edge of Oldeshire, just north of the famed Leopard Mountains. The village is located in the Garbanzo Desert and has a hot, dry climate.

History

Before the arrival of Oranjestad colonists, the area was dominated by the Garbanzo tribe, one of the few Enpeecee Tribes of the Leopard Mountains. In 1539, two House of Torrance ships, the Wolfen-Neb and the Santa Shiner, arrived in Garbanzo Bay. Relations with the local Garbanzo were warm initially, and trade happened between the two groups. In 1701, Cubist Priest Bucca de Beppo came to this area and established the Beppo Mission somewhat inland from where Garbanzo is now. To receive supplies by ship and evangelize the Garbanzo natives, the Cubist Missionaries founded another small mission on the bay, which they called Shiner Mission. The Garbanzo people began to resist the religious conversions, and repeatedly attacked the Shiner mission, forcing it to be abandoned and rebuilt several times. The last time this mission was abandoned was in 1759.

In 1767, Oranjestad Viceroy Mark LaCroix ordered a military offensive, the Garbanzo Expedition, to subdue the local tribes. After doing so, the colonials built an adobe fort with four towers in Garbanzo, initially under the command of Captain Lorenzo Cancio. No traces of the fort remain today, but the Shiner mission is marked by a church located on the road leading to nearby Stonegate. Around the same time, the colonists formally mapped the Garbanzo Bay and officially founded the village of Garbanzo in 1769. Despite the decree, no additional colonists settled there until the early 19th century.

In the late 18th and early 19th century, there was supposedly only one inhabitant in Garbanzo, called Uncle Pepe, who was said to be a drunk and a thief. At the beginning of the 19th century, the village began to be populated by farmers and ranchers, who held large properties but did not have markets for their products. Farming was on a subsistence level. In 1811, commercial maritime traffic was authorized, and customs were established later in 1823. Ships visited the bay intermittently but only one house was here for customs purposes. In this era, it was safer to travel by sea than by land; Garbanzo became an important stopping point for those heading north or south. The first commercial imports came through here in 1827. With the village slowly growing with Mainland colonists, the Garbanzo tribe moved away from the area and eventually disappeared as a distinct group.

Garbanzo was affirmed to be an Oranjestad holding at the Congress of Alqualonde in 1815. The village was unaffected by the world wars. Today, it remains a small village, with just 30 residents as of 2010.