Delepasians

The Delepasians (Pelaxian: Delepasiano) are a Vallosi descended from predominantly Pelaxian settlers first arriving at the Bahía de Los Rumas with Albalitorian Captain Mauricio José Delepas in 1497. Until 1994, they were the only group allowed to take part in Rumahoki's politics. Delepasians make up approximately 61.6% of the total Rumahokian population, based upon the number of Rumahokians who self-identified as Delepasians in the Rumahokian National Census of 2028. Rumahokian Pelaxian, Rumahoki's most widely spoken home language, evolved as the of Delepasians. It originated in the Pelaxian vernacular, incorporating words brought from the Adonerii and the now-extinct indigenous Vallosi.

The arrival of Delepas at Bahía de Los Rumas in 1497 opened a gateway of free access to Vallos from Pelaxia; however, it also necessitated the founding and safeguarding of the Pelaxian colonies from not only indigenous resistance, but also from foreign navies from Kiravia and Burgundie with the latter leading to a series of clashes lasting from the early 16th Century until 1665. As the colonies grew and prospered, some of the colonists, both notable and common, have began to practice intermarriage with both the remaining indigenous Vallosi and the Latins. Despite their diverse nationalities, these three groups have intermingled, using Pelaxian as the common language and adopting similar attitudes towards politics. The attributes they eventually shared served as a basis for the evolution of an Delepasian identity and consciousness separate from the wider Pelaxian culture.

Delepasian exceptionalism has taken the form of political parties and secret societies in the 19th and 20th Centuries as the colonies declared their independence from Pelaxia in the former century and consolidated their identity in the latter century. In 1938, Rosarian prime minister Fernando Pascual established the Estado Social regime to promote Delepasian interests and to further foster the Delepasian identity amongst the other Delepasian countries while adding in some strong Catholic overtones. In Navidadia, the ruling Navidadian Justice Party had set up the Navidadian System in 1943 which enforced a harsh policy of racial segregation against the Loa people in the southwest. Both of these systems were extended nation-wide after the establishment of the Delepasian Commonwealth in 1976. The Navidadian System and the Estado Social were both forcibly put to an end by the Velvet Revolution in 1994 following decades of domestic unrest that resulted in Rumahoki's first free and democratic elections held under a.

Nomenclature
The term "Delepasian" (sometimes in the forms Delepasan or Delepase, from the name Delepas) currently denotes the politically, culturally, and socially dominant and majority group among the non-indigenous groups of Rumahoki, or Pelaxian-speaking population of Pelaxian origin. Their original progenitors, especially in paternal lines, also included smaller numbers of Cartadanians, Latins, and the indigenous Vallosi people. Historically, the term "" has been used to describe the Pelaxian-speaking colonists further in-land as a group, with Vallosi-Pelaxian being used to describe the colonists who lived in coastal areas and thus were completely of Pelaxian ancestry; these aren't particularly objectionable, but "Delepasian" has been considered a more appropriate term.

By the late eighteenth century, the term was in common usage in the Pelaxian colonies of eastern Vallos. At one time, mestizos denoted the Pelaxian-speaking colonists who lived away from the coast: those settlers who engaged in intermarriage more often, and did so regularly regardless of social status. Most Pelaxian-speaking settlers who lived in coastal areas saw themselves as Vallosi-Pelaxians despite never having intermarried with the indigenous Vallosi. Both terms have remained in use as late as the 1850s.

The first recorded instance of a colonist identifying as a Delepasian occurred in July 1797, during the tricentennial of Delepas' discovery of the Bahía de Los Rumas. When the author Juan Guerrero wrote, "Hace trescientos años, el intrépido héroe Mauricio Delepas plantó la bandera de Pelaxia en el hermoso dominio de Delepasia. Nosotros, los delepasianos, deberíamos desarrollar una identidad separada de Pelaxia, una identidad en la que abracemos la única fe verdadera sin importar si nuestros antepasados fueron pelaxianos, cartadanianos, latinos o los Vallosi, mitificados durante mucho tiempo." ("Three hundred years ago, the dauntless hero Mauricio Delepas planted Pelaxia's flag on Delepasia's fair domain. We Delepasians ought to develop an identity separate from Pelaxia, an identity where we embrace the one true faith without regard towards whether our forefathers were Pelaxian, Cartadanian, Latins, or the long-mythologised Vallosi."). Guerrero's words were widely-distributed amongst the Pelaxian colonies, leading to growing sense of national consciousness amongst all colonists regardless of whether they were on the coast or further inland.