MY CHARACTERS

Perspective characters (apps pending)

Name: Pontiac

Place: Michigan

Bio: Like many Native-Americans, little is known of the early life on Pontiac. Pontiac was born in an Ottawa village outside the location of Fort Detroit between the years 1712 and 1725. Pontiac was raised as a member of the Ottawa tribe by parents who were either Ojibwa or Miami Indian. For most of his child-hood life he was raised near Fort Detroit.

After his child-hood Pontiac came to prominence among his people when it 1747 he led his people as a war chief in alliance with the French against an uprising of the Huron people. The alliance between Ottawa and the French held strong after, and Pontiac partook in battles against the English in the North American front of the Seven Years war; the French and Indian War in the Americas. Here Pontiac grew to acclaim among his people as a warrior as he fought successive skirmishes and battles against the British, such as the French victory over the Braddock expedition.

It wasn't until 1765 that Pontiac drew public attention among a broader audience when a British frontier soldier met Pontiac in the midst of the war. It was from this encounter that the soldier wrote a play about the formidable and charismatic leader which became the root of his awareness among the British colonists in later years, and among the rest of the colonies.

Though while Pontiac had garnered a significant reputation on the battlefield during the French and Indian War, his best is yet to come.

With the conclusion of the war and cessation of former French lands to the British the formerly French-allied tribes were thrown into disarray as French presence in the Ohio Valley and Michigan disappeared as Upper Lousiana was ceded to British authority. The initial sweep of colonists into the native forests was bad enough, but when the winters began to become longer, and the summers colder it began getting worse.

Over short summers more and more of the British arrived on American shores. While initial diplomacy suggested the British would not infringe on native lands, the burdens became heavy as the flood gates opened unleashing many hundreds of British frontiersmen onto Native American land. And as the winter grew colder the prevalence of distance natives did grow as well as new hunters merged south in seek of warmer lands ahead of the ice-shields that grew from the northern reaches of Canada.

In these times as they grow dire and the world steeps itself in the confusion of changing times Pontiac reaches out to Guyasuta...
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Name: Guyasuta

Place: Michigan-Ohio

Bio: Born in western New York around the year 1725, Guyasuta is a prominent Seneca was chief. Having once met and lead a young George Washington to Fort Le Boeuf in the build up to the Seven Years war Guyasuta chose not to in the end ally with the encroaching British powers and allied with the French in the ensuing war. Playing a part in the battle that ended the Braddock expedition he crossed paths with leaders like Pontiac, and like the young Ottawa war chief came to acclaim among Indian warriors, though not to the degrees as Pontiac.

Much respected by his people he held an important place in Seneca leadership and was looked to for guidance by the Seneca people when beyond all expectations more and more British settlers sailed across the great ocean to settle the Americas, greatly displacing the Seneca tribe along with others. As the scope of British settlement grew and the Seneca were pushed from their land they fled west into the Ohio valley, and deeper still.

With the additional stress of the tired northern tribes straying south to avoid the deepening freeze and migrating game in Canada, Guyasuta and his people were faced with the double threat of not only European refugees filling up land, but migrating refugee Native Americans.

And it was when Pontiac called for him, he responded.
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Name: Peter Pytorvich Kavinovich

Place: Northern California

Bio: Born in the year 1727, Peter Pytorvich came into the world as the son of a merchant family in Kiev, Russia. Peter's young life was a simple affair, attending church and a religious school paid for by his father. Born two years after Peter the Great and at the end of Catherine the Great's reign as Empress of Russia young Peter lived in a still changing Russia reaping the benefits of what was new to it for its re-alignment to the west.

His father traded primarily with the Austrians and the Germans through the years and as a teenager Peter traveled to Vienna and Königsberg on several locations. And although he never earned a mastery of the language, he still learned and became capable of speaking German as a result of his infrequent trips and dealings alongside his father as a young man.

When Peter came in adulthood he became conscripted into the Imperial Army, as the terms were for life Peter braced himself for a life of soldiery in 1754.

At the outbreak of the Seven Years War, Peter had attained the rank of sergeant in the military. During the course of the war his unit was marched to take the city of Königsberg. His previous familiarity of the city was like a return home to Peter, and in the battle for the city he displayed considerable valor and was to make a promotion for his show of force and valor in the face of enemy fire. However on hearing of the promotion a jealous fellow officer sought to stymie Peter's future in the army, and murdered one of the fresh privates the previous night.

The following morning Peter was summoned before command to answer for what had just happened. Flabbergasted, he was speechless as the jealous sergeant railed against Peter, producing evidence and testimony against him. He was promptly arrested and held prisoner to be tried for murder.

His imprisonment didn't last long, at some point he escaped; though he refuses to say how, and fled from Russian-occupied Prussia choosing to not face what punishment the military courts might have for him and instead choosing to live a life of self-appointed exile in Siberia.

In Siberia, Peter assumed a new name but lived in fear and paranoia of retribution for bailing on the army in the west. Seeking safety and work he sought refuge among the Siberian Host, cossacks serving the Tsar to clear and help settle the Siberian frontier for the Empire. Through the duration of the war he drifted with the hose across Siberia performing soldier's work, clashing with the Siberian tribes who called the vast tracts of wilderness claimed by the Empire. And over-time as the winter's bite grew colder Peter found himself the furthest east a man could walk in Siberia. Finding himself in the distant frontier port of Petropavlovsk he tried to settle down until he saw in the street the czar's men.

Peter's paranoia of being caught as a refugee never died, and quickly he dashed to the port were he traded his skills as a soldier-turned Cossack to a boat docked at port, a Russian fur-trader from Alaska bound to China. He was readily admitted and they set sail for East Asia the following day.

A storm blew in on their journey, damaging the ship and the Russian trade was forced to make land-fall outside the small village of Haishenwai in late winter. Or it was what they thought to be late winter, in truth the cold never let up that year and while the ice melted from the rivers and the horses could drink from the troughs there was always a cold snap and bite to the air. Repairs on the ship became slow, the men becoming afraid that they would be found out by Qing authorities who had strictly prohibited the non-Manchu from setting foot in this area of Manchuria.

In order to accommodate for repairs to their ship – having beached it in shallow waters on rocks, it was beyond the minor storm damage forced upon them – the expedition was forced to trade away the otter pelts from America to pay for the services from the village. Work lingered on into winter and the men were forced to endure another long, bitter winter that never relented in its onslaught.

After long complicated work they were able to leave their prison, and with no otter pelts to sell in legitimate ports in Asia the captain turned the ship around towards America.

Intending to take the usual route that would sweep them passed the Bering Straight and to follow the coast of Alaska until they made port, the plan was quickly foiled as the ship came across dense ice-pack that had formed into the Arctic Circle and extended far beyond. The ship never found Alaska.

When they finally made land-fall in waters free of dangerous ice the Russian expedition was far from where they wanted to be, low on water, and low on food. Harsh fashioning had been put in place and for food the crew had taken to capturing sea birds that came too close to deck. The entire crew came to land famished and weak.

Replenishing their supplies and their water, they scouted the area around them later reconnecting with Russian trappers and Siberian expats that had chosen to find refuge in the Americas rather than dealing with the threat posed in trying to find a home in China or Japan.

It was under these men that the bedraggled, lost, and confused Russian refugees established a new home, Fort Nadezha. They had no way to connect with the Russian authorities in Moscow, or if it were even possible. Hoping there would be other vessels at sea from Russia or to continue trading with the now lost colony in Alaska the inhabitants of the Nadezha built a rudimentary light house, where a large beacon would hail in any ships at sea.

Nadezha was a rudimentary shelter, composed of only a palisade wall and canvas tents, the men who called it home lived on hunting and foraging the country-side, and battling and trading with the natives. It wasn't long after its foundation that slowly small, half-starved crews drifted to the fort and joined with the men there. And longer after men and women fleeing Asia sought desperate refuge in the direction the Lost Russians went, and a small entourage of Japanese and Chinese sailors followed and joined them.

As a veteran of both the Imperial army and the Cossacks, Peter became a notable man in the defense of and policing of Nadezha, though hardly much in an official capacity. Through contact he learned Chinese and Japanese.