Columbian Jihad (St. George's Night)

The Columbian Jihad was a major religious conflict fought in the New World from 1700 into the late 1720s. It represented a backlash against colonial expansion by indigenous Columbians, who were aided by defeated Muslim colonists who had, in the Second Carib War, been stripped of much of their territory and power a decade earlier. The religious leader Negushwa assembled a confederation of many Columbian tribes, who had largely been driven, by this time, west of the Mississippi. Negushwa drew on Muslim proselytization among the native Columbians, and on native Columbian traditions, proclaiming himself Mahdi and vowing to expel the colonial powers from the continent. He was aided by refugees fleeing the Burgundian conquest of Ottoman Mostanqia, and by the still-surviving Ottoman colony of Gharnajada. Initially, Negushwa enjoyed initial success, defeating a Castilian-Burgundian alliance and conquering much of the two powers' colonial territories by 1710. However, when Anglia, Portugal and the newly independent ex-Venetian colony of Nasso joined the war, and when his Muslim allies largely defected, fearing that they might be attacked next, Negushwa was defeated and killed in 1718, and his confederation disintegrated. However, the Jihad was successful at slowing colonial expansion, facilitating the establishment of the native Columbian state of Dakota, where his ideas maintain widespread influence.