The Age of Apartheid
Genosha’s origins in statehood began in the 18th century. Uninhabited for centuries, the island—northeast of Madagascar, off Africa’s east coast—its discovery in the 16th century by seafaring European powers, and eventually its importance as a stepping stone to trade routes in Asia, saw Genosha develop into a colonial territory, first under French rule, then British. A colony until its secession from the British Empire in the 1960s, an independent Genosha flourished, becoming a small, but wealthy state—but its rapid ascent on the geopolitical sphere was built on the back of the horrifying legacy of its colonial past and the slave trade.
Genosha’s independent government initiated a crackdown on its mutant population, regularly testing children for the X-Gene and stripping mutants of their rights and citizenship. Aided by the sinister being Sugar Man—from the alternate timeline in which the Age of Apocalypse occurred—David Moreau, a chief Genoshan scientist, invented a process that would transform confirmed mutants into “mutates,” a near mindless labor force stripped of memory, with altered personalities bred to maintain obedience, and their mutant powers genetically re-engineered to best suit the needs of Genoshan production.
