Santa Teresa

Santa Teresa is the second largest city on Abarat, but is stricken with a Gang War, the result of which is important to all of Pintonia.

History
Founded by the Spanish in 1714, as a mining town, where workers, mostly slaves and natives, mined coal, silver, and other minerals, which helped fund the Spanish Colonial Empire.

When Bonaparte invaded the Islands, his forces swiftly overwhelmed the small Spanish Garrison, most of whom changed sides before the battle. Santa Teresa was secured without a shot being fired, as the soldiers were marched to their deaths against the French, in the battle of Abarat. Bonaparte never visited Santa Teresa, and no Bonaparte ever has. It's transformation from a small mining town to a mining city was of no interest to them. What interested the early Bonaparte's was the revenue it brought in, allowing them to continue to build their gaudy capital around El Dorado, to the north.

The end of the Imperial phase, and the movement into a republic heralded in a Golden Age, for the rest of Pintonia. Santa Teresa continued to just be a mining city, but with Migrant Workers and immigrants in the place of slaves and natives. In the Great Depression, the mines drew workers in from all over the country, desperate for work.

However, a year into the Depression, no one was buying minerals any more. The stocks in the mines plummeted. Thousands lost their jobs, became unemployed. They clustered in slums around the closed mines, desperate for work. Many turned to crime.

In the hellish conditions of the Great Depression, the Teresa Mafia was born. Bootlegging, drug running and protection rackets were their mainstay. They ruled the underworld with an iron fist, mercilessly crushing their enemies.

The depression continued until 1940, when the steady recovery of the United States painfully pulled Pintonia out of Depression, as the US needed the Industry of Pintopia. The mines reopened, and the membership of the Mafia plummeted. In desperation, they took to raiding mines, killing those that had returned from the Mafia to the Mines. In response, the police, unwilling to see Santa Teresa fall behind the rest of Pintonia, began to systematically destroy the Mafia's power base.

When Pintonia joined the Second World War, in 1941, Santa Teresa was hit hard. The mines were stripped of men, and POWs were put to work in the mines in their place. The Mafia was almost wiped out, with most of their men sent to their deaths in the Pacific.

Following the end of the war, the mines did not reopen. They had been inspected at the end of the war, and found both unsafe, and uneconomical. The city attempted to reinvent itself as an industrial city, as Aramanth was, to the East. But to no avail. Instead, the Mafia grew in power once more. The Mob ruled the streets. With the Mob bringing revenue to the city, immigrants entered the city, to capitalise on the cash flow in the city. And so, the success of the Mafia contained the seeds of their own destruction.

The Pintonian Cartel was formed in Santa Teresa, by a group of immigrants from one of the Northern Islands, who's family came from Columbia, and ran a Cartel. The Columbian Cartel smuggled Coca plants into Pintonia, and they were grown in Plantations in and around Santa Teresa. Once the plantations were large enough, the Pintonian Cartel cut their ties with the Columbians, killing those that came to collect the Cocaine extracted from the Plants. The Cartel built up their strength over time, securing more and more influence over the East of the City, whilst the Mob was oblivious.

In the 1990s, the Cartel had influence over all of the East Side of the Teresa River, which ran through the middle of Santa Teresa. When the Mafia came to collect protection money from the East, the Cartel murdered the collectors.

And thus began the Gang War, which has been going on since 1995, and shows no sign of slowly down. The Mafia is losing the war, but it is a slow defeat, with the Cartel paying in blood for every Block they take control of.

The Police attempted, early on, to end the war, but lost so many men in doing so, that for the last 10 years, they have simply patrolled, and dealt with what they see, and no longer respond to Emergency Calls. Police Casualties have resolutely failed to fall, and they sit at around 20 every month. As a result, the Police have announced their decision to evacuate the city, on the 20th of June, at which point, the Military shall move in, as Martial Law shall be declared.

Should the Cartel gain control of the city, they will be able to export drugs worldwide. This would result in American intervention, as in Columbia, and this would humiliate Pintonia, as a nation unable to defend itself from a Gang.

Geography
The City of Santa Teresa sits between two hills, both riddled with Mines, and has a large, slow moving river running through the centre of the city, the River Teresa.