Dearest General (II)

The taking of Eke was not easy, but it has been done. We had long been migrating soldiers to the town, hiding in the church they allowed us to put up in their forbidden forest. The plan had first been to lure them with the usual psychological tricks, religious synchronisation, and other such tactics to weaken their faith and disrupt their ancestral memory. It did not work. As it appeared, they knew too well what their symbols meant for one to brainwash them about it. The political angle didn’t work either. You see, they had no real “ruler” whose word was final. Rather, they had a collection of somewhat cultish societies controlling different aspects of life. I will be detailing some of them at the back of this letter as well as some interesting notes I have observed in their culture. I have a feeling we are not quite done here, and resistance will still rear its ugly head again. I am looking into introducing the warrant chief system immediately. It has worked in breaking into many societies in other places. Any resistance will be dealt with, of course, until we find a willing horse. And speaking of resistance.

We had originally planned to attack on the New Yam festival when we could catch them off guard and drunk from their palm wine. But plans had to change following a tip from one of our native spies—a disgruntled child who did not pass the test of manhood for his age grade. We came to learn that one native who had returned from the already-captured Onicha came back to spread a tale of fear. To his people, he painted a picture of our conquest so frightening that they agreed to bring the war to us immediately. And so, they came, with what guns and muskets we had sold them for slaves in that era, and their bows, arrows, and blades. Sure, they fought like men; but we had the Maxim gun. We are still assembling the dead, piling the bodies for their families to come and claim. We have put boots on their streets too, and a few men with horses and armour to intimidate them.

We are working on a stronger brainwashing plan to turn them from their ways, but this will not be easy with this lot. We must make evil of their priests, seers, and symbols. Their generations to come must encounter their native aesthetics with dread and tremble. We shall make idols of their gods, falsehoods of their ways. Our language must dominate their souls, how they think, and how they see. It will not be easy, but it will be done—it must be done. For Anglon, and the tomorrow that never comes.

Kind regards,
Commander Stone