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SOJOURN |
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A story based on the life of Sojourn, an only child to his parents. He was born and raised in northern Africa
and lived with his parents on the coastal regions. He enjoyed helping his mother out at home, swimming in the
sea, playing in the sand and fishing with his father. His father never allowed him go fishing alone for
personal and safety reasons because it required rowing a far distance away from the beach, beyond shore
visibility due to the fog, plus his parents were overprotective as he was their only child.
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Chapter I: The Abduction |
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On his 13th birthday his father distracted him away from his suprise birthday party by sending him out to sea to fish for his very first time alone while they worked on getting the house prepared for his big day. Excited, Sojourn set out alone, promising to bring back the biggest fish ever. While Sojourn was fishing in the fog, a huge ship came into view, unknown to him, a naive boy that lived in peace and comfort for all his life, they were human trafickers. No sooner after they spotted him did they get him on the ship and threw him into a hole in the middle of the deck. A scared Sojourn could not contain his tears through the whole ordeal. When he landed at the bottom of the ship he slowly got up to survey his surroundings and immediately saw shadows creeping out from the darkness. It was at this point he reaslised he was not alone, several people where down there with him. Some people helped him up and when he asked what was going on they exchanged explanations and speculations on how they got to be there. Sojourn could not fully understand the different dialects but he could decipher the words "relocating", "Portuguese colony" and "Brazil". |
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Chapter II: Journey to the Colony |
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The tribal fueds, the diseases of the living and the dead, the dirty and scarce food, food rushes and unclean water etc. Finally arriving at Recife. Sojourn was among the many African's that had been abducted to work in a Colony. |
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Chapter III: Sugar and Tobacco |
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Gave them all white clothes, color contrasts between their clothes and skin color would ensure they stood out more and could be easily recognised if they tried to escape. Work at the plantations start, experiencing the hardship, knowing they can't escape, some try to run away but are caught and severely beaten or even killed. Sojourn makes some friends. Tribe wars escalate, fights break out using sugar cains as weapons. Sojourn tries to break up some fights even though he was just a 15 year old boy. Sojourn befriends a girl here. |
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Chapter IV: Recifian Rebellion |
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Sojourn, now 20 and completely fed up decides to plan an escape but is initially met by lack of motivation from the people and tribal barriers. He finally gathers a group of 40 people of different tribes. The escape is a partial success, some people, including the girl gets left behind and will now suffer with even more work load, tighter security, less food etc. Sojourn promises to come back for all of them. |
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Chapter V: Palmares |
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Now on the run, the people blame Sojourn because now they have knowhere to go, their hungry, wanted, injured etc. Sojourn leeds them into the mountains and with help from Native indians find a place to stay. A huge community is formed called Palmares. Sojourn grows his hair very long and weeves dreadlocks into them. |
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Chapter VI: The Birth of Capoeira |
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They needed a way to protect themselves for their oppressors. Through cultural fusion the martial art/dance was born. Lead by Sojourn, the fighting style was used to raid the plantation they escaped from and rescue the remaining slaves at the Recife plantation, including the girl. Palmares bloomed, some became traders, some dedicated themselves to rescuing more slaves and Sojourn settled down with the girl. The Portuguese colonizers suffered a diminishing labour force. Nick names where given to all masters of Capoeira, people baptized into the martial art order. Sojourn alone didn't form it, he was part of it. |
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Chapter VII: The Brazilian War |
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Holland (the dutch) invades Brazil and beat the portuguese. The people living in Palmares don't help the Brazillians fight the Dutch. The Dutch finally win and takeover all the sugar and tobacco plantations. |
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Chapter VIII: Jungle Warfare |
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Several attemps where made by the Dutch to infiltrate Palmares with no avail because of the carefully planned guerilla tactics employed by the Africans which involved ambushes and capoeira using sugar canes as weapons. They didn't know where exactly Palmares was in the mountains and they finally found it through an African mole within Palmares that set them all up (on going beef and status jealousy between the person and Sojourn). The person was expecting pay and ended up getting killed. Sojourn and a group of others where captured and taken back for interrogation. Within the struggle Sojourn told the girl and others to run while he stayed behind and fought, he hoped that one day they would meet again. They left to go up north to Paraguay where they would be safe. |
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Chapter IX: Freemen |
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They intended for some of them to get caught as to teach this martial art to others still in captivity. The dance-like moves would mask it's true motives. Sojourn and the others taught Capoeira to the new slaves and masked it in Music and dance. They could only train on Sundays and planned the biggest revolution of all to totally abolish the slavery act. They succeeded. |
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Chapter X: Special Forces |
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Time had passed, people where free, some looked for work, some lended their skills to becoming bodyguards, some became criminals but all capoeira was hated by politicians. Sojourn was looking for a way home but with no money or means of transport was stuck in Brazil. He also felt his work in the country was not finnished yet, he still had something to do. He ended up joining the military, he could use his skills for some good and at the same time get enough money to return home. There was a particularly ruthless police chief in charge of the force and the chief and Sojourn had bad vibes with Sojourn diagreeing with many of his orders due to their cruel nature. The force had to learn capoeira and Sojourn had to mask his abilitis as not to draw attention to himself but the chief suspected him. The chief was getting out of control, Jailing, injuring and even killing several practioners of Capoeria and the government liked it. Sojourn decided it was time to stop and it wasn't long before there was a one on one between them with all the special forces behind Sojourn. Sojourn narrowly wins as the chief is a master Capoeirista. Now that he's in charge of this group he can't leave, he has to put an end to this once and for all. |
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Chapter XI: Black Militia Outlaws |
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The group was formed from several of the special forces group and other capoeira artists to oppose the government. Brazil later wen't to war against Paraguay, the government pleaded with the Black Militia for assistance because they where loosing the war and they helped out after much persuasion from Sojourn, insisting they must fight this war that its the only way the government will be off their back for good. He decideds to fight, gets a serious war wound and almost dies but recovers in hospital. They win the war and become national heroes. The girl joined the Paraguay army to get into Brazil to find Sojourn and the others, she is at his side when he wakes up in the hospital. The government could have taken out the Black Militia Outlaw leader if they wanted to while he recovered but chose not to. |
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Chapter XII: The Liberation |
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Sojourn recieved an invitation to demonstrate his art infront of the president and now that capoeira was legalised his friends had plans to open schools to teach it and he was free to go home. He packed up, said his goodbyes and set sail back to Africa with the girl, on reaching home he heard of his parents death, of old age and probably of a broken heart. After mourning he made a new house for himself at the beach he grew up in. He cut off his grown dreadlocks as a sign of freedom and liberation. He currently lives on the beaches with his new family. It's a lovely sunset, sojourn, his wife and son are out on the beach playing, sojourn is teaching his boy capoeira while his wife is playing the music. |
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© Copyright 2008 HexGEAR Studios |
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