Timeline (The Domination Map Game)

1776 -Outbreak of American Revolution. Major Patrick Ferguson invents early breechloading rifle.

1779 -France, Spain, Netherlands* declare war on Great Britain.

1779 -British fleet under Admiral Lord Cochrane lands occupying force in Capetown.*

1780 -Colonel Ferguson's loyalists victorious in battle of Kings Mountain.* Several Loyalist units, including Tarleton's Legion and the newly formed Ferguson's Legion, re-equipped with Ferguson breechloaders.* Savage partisan warfare throughout Southern colonies.

1781 -General Cornwallis besieged at Yorktown in Virginia, surrenders to American rebels and their French allies.

1782 -British naval victories in Caribbean, occupation of Haiti and Trinidad.*

1783 -Second Peace of Paris. American independence recognized; British Florida and her conquests in Caribbean are exchanged for possession of Dutch Cape Colony.*

1783 -Loyalty Acts passed by British Parliament: the Cape is renamed the Crown Colony of Drakia, and all colonials who fought or otherwise suffered for their loyalty to the Crown are offered transport and land grants; so are the Hessian and other German mercenaries in British service at the time. Legislative Assembly meets in Capetown. General Patrick Ferguson is first Governor-General.

1780–83 -First Loyalist refugees arrive in Capetown. Conquest of Southern Africa begun; border pushed to Tugela River.

1783–86 -95,000 Loyalists and their families (not including some 10,000 slaves) arrive; 10,000 Hessians soon follow, with relatives and families arriving in a steady trickle from Germany. At this time the Dutch-Afrikaner population is less than 9,000, and is soon assimilated through intermarriage.

1784 -Founding of Virconium (Durban, South Africa), and Venta Belgarum (East London, South Africa). General Banastare Tarleton becomes first Commander-in-Chief.

1783–84 -Volcanic eruptions devastate Iceland. 25,000 Icelanders offered asylum in Drakia, arriving 1783–86.

1784 -Diamonds discovered in northern interior. Founding of Archona (Pretoria, South Africa).

1785 -Gold discovered on Whiteridge (Whitwaterstrand) and in eastern Archona Province (Transvaal). First steam engines imported. Output reaches 1,000,000 ounces by 1786.

1786 -Drakian Legislative Assembly passes Indentured Labor and Master and Servant Acts, establishing system of debt-peonage for conquered nonwhite population. This rapidly becomes indistinguishable from chattel slavery, which is also practiced.

1786–90 -Rapid growth of economy and population. Export trades in diamonds, gold, copper, sugar, woo1, salt, hides, ivory, etc., established. Drakian ships active in Atlantic and Indian Ocean slave trades. Zanzibar seized in 1789; Aden, 1791. Free population reaches 175,000; slave/serf 2,000,000. Transportation Directorate established to build road network to mines and settlements of far interior.

1788 -Colonel Freiherr Augustus von Shrakenberg retires, receives 20,000 acre land grant under Maluti Mountains, South Interior province (Lesotho). Marries Alexandra Hugeson, of a New Jersey loyalist family.

1790–92 -Universities of Cape Town, Virconium, and Archona founded. Anglican bishoprics established in Cape Town and Virconium.

1792 -Conquest of Northmark (Rhodesia/Zimbabwe); settlement and development proceed. Gold output exceeds 2,000,000 ounces annually.

1793 -First coal mine in northern Natalia. Outbreak of French Revolutionary/Napoleonic wars.

1790–96 -Period of rapid growth continues, with serious slave/serf revolts in 1792, 1794 and 1795–97. Slave Code of 1797 grants all freemen power of life and death over "slaves and other bondservants." Militia Act of 1792 establishes peacetime conscription and reserve service to age 60. Women's Militia Auxiliary founded as volunteer group. First Janissary Legion recruited from slaves bought in West Africa.

1795 -African Mining and Metals Combine founded. Granted monopoly of large-scale mining, leases smaller deposits to discoverers. School of Mines founded in Archona.

1796 -Richard Trevithick arrives in Virconium from Cornwall, appointed Inspector-General of Steam Engines by Mining Combine.

(PK: One of the next two entries is either out of order or has the wrong date. I can't tell which.)

1799 -Founding of Diskarapur (Newcastle, South Africa) and Shahnapur (Maputo, Mozambique). Trade with India produces fad for Persian/Moghul artwork.

1794–97 -French population of Santo Domingo/Haiti flees before slave revolt. 11,000 arrive in Drakia. Royalists from European France follow.

1800 -Free population reaches 350,000. First iron-works, machine shops, shipbuilding yards started as Revolutionary/Napoleonic wars render imports uncertain. Cotton becomes important crop. Large-scale public works in roads, harbors, irrigation. And this is were the madness begins.