weclome vistior

welcome to the home of Oronegro, a land that not so long ago was a peaceful and prosperous place but by the mid 2020's it was engulfed in a violent civil war! The whole world watched doing their bit in the conflict. the story is one of a small country stuck in superpower politics

Thursday, September 13, 2012

Chocolate and crude the two black golds

Oronegro literally means black gold but even though today it refers to the oil that the nation has an unusual abundance of the name comes from a time when oil was not the commodity that wars are fought over... no it all started with chocolate.

Oronegro is named after the delicacy that gripped Europe's nobles in the 18th century. The reason why it became so famous was that Oronegro produced large quantities of Coco, the black gold was transported all over Europe and some places in the imperial colonies of Spain. Many rich nobles from Spain would travel to Oronegro to sample their own "crop" each Nobel family would have a favourite farm or even field from which their own personal supply of coco came from. Oronegro became so wealthy that it was the rich coco crop growers that funded the revolution and established the political links that got the British so deeply involved with the nation in the early 1860's. So deals were struck over large mugs of dark hot chocolate and Oronegro was made independent. in fact it was called Oronegro from the start, it was meant to be a joke, a small pun made between the British and Oronegrean dignitaries. However, the attendants who stood by thought it was a great idea, in fact they went out after this initial meeting and told as many people as they possibly could. News spreads quickly when it is important and soon crowds formed calling them selves la gente del Oronegro. Yet why did they love the name?

Chocolate was an important commodity for Oronegro and the people of the nation had always known that the growing of Coco was important. So when they heard a possible name for the new nation was going to be linked to their nations strongest asset they loved it! so Oronegro was unofficially born... in fact it almost never happened, the negotiations were about to conclude that "tierra bonita" beautiful land had been liberated and had become official nation. But it was never going to become the nations name, Oronegro was now so accepted by the nations people that any other name could have been treated as an insult!

so it was that; "on 30th May 1867 that the Nation of Oronegro, as agreed by the nations of Britain and Spain, has been officially been given the right of self governance. in so doing is now given the recognition by these and all nations as an independent state..."

so that was how Chocolate or coco the first black gold of the nation gave it its name that it would bear for all time, though it was oil in the 20th and 21st centuries that would become the main representation of the "black gold of Oronegro". That is the story of Oronegro got its name.

1 comment:

  1. A nice etymological account, Gowan. I can see one potential for conflict (apart from the usual ideological, economic, political and sociological reasons) and that is the desire for land by the Coco growers and the Oil prospectors. Of course, both want to exploit the labouring classes into the ground, but - yep - I can already see Oronegro as a hotbed of dissent, dispute and disaster... Excellent!
    Cheers,
    Ion

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