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Jeremiah Stafford
Fictional Character
Atlantis
POD: c 85,000,000 BCE;
Relevant POD: 1452
Appearance(s): Liberating Atlantis
Type of Appearance: Direct POV
Nationality: United States of Atlantis
Religion: Christianity
Occupation: Land-holder, Lawyer, Politician
Spouse: Annabelle Stafford
Children: Three died in infancy
Relatives: Radcliffe family (distant relation)
Political Office(s): Senator from Cosquer,
Consul of the United States of Atlantis

Jeremiah Stafford, known to his detractors as the "Greased Snake" or the "Great Stone Face", was one of the two Consuls of Atlantis at the time of the Atlantean Servile Insurrection. Stafford was a land-holder from Cosquer, Atlantis. He was a lawyer by trade, and had served as a senator before his election to Consul. Like many politicians in Atlantis, Stafford could claim Edward Radcliffe as a distant ancestor.

As a plantation owner from southern Atlantis, Stafford was strongly pro-slavery. Indeed, Stafford had become one the country's most elegant defenders of the institution, espousing the belief that Negroes and copperskins were inherently inferior to whites and fit only for servitude. This brought him into frequent conflict with his Co-Consul, Leland Newton, an opponent of slavery from Croydon. When the Insurrection broke out, Newton used his veto powers to prevent the deployment of the Atlantean Army, much to Stafford's frustration. Newton's decision was reasonably popular in the northern half of the country, and reviled in the southern half.

Stafford attempted to subvert the system and Leland's inertia by unofficially condoning the Ministry of War's decision to release southern Atlanteans from their duties, so that they in turn might join the local militias that were fighting the insurrection. Newton learned of this when imprudent Ministry officials bragged of it in a restaurant. Newton immediately acted to stop this process, much to Stafford's chagrin.

However, after some weeks of insurrection, Newton was convinced to intervene militarily by Senator Hiram Radcliffe, who feared that without federal intervention, the governments of the southern states might allow harsher reprisals against the rebels, which could in turn cause even more bloodshed and racial stratification. Newton agreed, and gave his vote to mobilize the Army. Stafford quickly realized Newton's agenda. For his own part, Stafford's very sense of white superiority was offended the Insurrection, and it was his intention to use the Army to utterly defeat it and slaughter its leaders to the man. Thus it was that Stafford and Newton took to the field of battle to supervise the Army and the war.

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