Dear Charlie
I Understand that you are about to take over management of William Wonka III's Chocolate Factory. Before you do, I wish to inform you of some of it's history of which Mr. Wonka might have altered and clouded for his own purposes. After reading this, I that you will consider changing from some of Mr. Wonka's somewhat cruel policies.
I know not of the history of Willy Wonka, only about my own experiance with this sadistic individual. I was born in a land J.R.R Tolkein described as the Shire in Middle Earth, what Frank Baum called Munchkinland in Oz, C.S Lewis as a province in Narnia and what Mr. Wonka himself would refer to as Loompalaland.
All of the books that these authors have written are printed, published, and edited by companies owned by none other then Mr.Willy Wonka himself. Any truths written in these books, at least regarding my home country, have been altered to shine a more positive light on himself, and his Businesses. Right now such a book is being written about your own story. I know not if any lies or alterations shall be included. The author chosen is kind of a maverick
Of all these books, the most accurate description of our land is given in Tolkein's the Lord of the Rings. We live in nice little houses dug into the hills, and we enjoy a simple life, full of good meals and good times. We are a people who have produced such heros as Frodo Baggins, Samwise Gamgee, and the poet Timmons Olick Frapplelac.
Willy Wonka refers to our country as a "terrible country", infested by thick jungles with dangerous beasts who eat my people for breakfast. It is true that on the outskirts of our settlements we have heavily wooded forests ( rather good Lumber for furniture, as Mr. Wonka would later find) , and we do have on occasion problems with wolves and living, monstrous trees. However, our land is also a land of smooth rolling hills, and tranquil flowing streams, a land of endless farmlands, and a people whom besides the occasional disruption ( Saruman, The White Witch and her endless winter, the Wicked Witch of the West and Dorothy), once lived in an almost care free life style.
Then came the imperialistic entrepreneur William Wonka.. I was, by you measure of age, ten years old when he first arrived. At first, he brought advances in technology which improved are style of living, ( runnig water, electricity, etc) He then hired some of my kind, offering a rather high income, to become his "associates" in businesses he claimed to plan to open up in our country.
These "Associates" were really just mercenaries and pirates. They were employed in the only business Mr. Wonka ever opened up in our land, the slave trade. One by one, my people were sent off to work as slaves in his chocolate factory ( you may or may not know that this is only one of many industries under his control). He played my people by using their greed to drive them to enslave each other, and he pitted tribe against tribe, playing on our once trivial, humorous rivalries amongst my people.
When I was, by your standards, twelve my mother was taken into slavery. My father resisted, and was killed. When I was sixteen, a man named Klaus Hemmistring entered our land via a wardrobe owned by a Human professor.
Klaus Hemmistring was a pilot of an air ship fighting in one of your "greatest wars". He crash landed in the north of your country of Great Britain. He roamed around aimlessly until he came across a group of two young boys, and two young girls ( who would become great kings and Queens, whom would in fact hardly influence the region of their lands in which we lived).
He followed them, without them knowing, to a the house in which they were staying (the Proffesor's), snuck into the house, and hide out in one of the Professor's spare rooms. One cold night, he saw that it would be warmer in the Wardrobe. He slept in the Wardrobe that night, and woke up in a land completely foreign to him. That was our land. (This was two days after the children went into the Wardrobe and then came out again somehow they never ran into Herr Hemmistring by our rate of time, the reign of King Peter had been half a century in the past).
He snuck around our villages, and saw how we sold out our own people, to send them off into small packages with holes them to work in Willy Wonka's chocolate factory, producing fine candy for all the spoiled brats living amongst you. Then one day, he stood up on a pedestal at the center of one of our towns, and gave a speech. In it, he urged the remainder of us folk still living in our home country to resist. He had many followers, who became known as the Oipa Lipia, which in our language means the Great Resistance.
By this time, Mr. Wonka was back in his home land, smoking big cigars in his mansion home. When he got news of The Oipa Lipia, he just snickered, and started to refer to us as Oompa Loompas, which is how the term usage was began.
He had discovered that our trees were made for strong, but lightweight lumber. He decided he would utilize this, and he ordered the deforestation of our one vast forests, so that the wood could be used as furniture.
The Lumber Mills he had had built (by slaves from other lands, such as the Grimples from further south) was the Great Resistance's first target, in the beginning of a long Guerrilla war which we would wage against the forces off oppression. By this Time, I had joined the Oipa Lipia.
In the tour of the chocolate factory which you were given, you may have noticed that the worker were singing songs. These were probably songs that applied more to humans then to themselves, with moral messages addressed to you and the others in the tour. Had you have gone to the workers quarter of the factory, where the real slaves were kept, you may have heard the same kinds of songs, only with much different lyrics. Lyrics such as:
Oompa Loompa doompadee doo
I've got another puzzle for you
Oompa Loompa doompadah dee
If you are wise you'll listen to me
Who is the man who enslaves us here
And wears a purple hat
cause he thinks he's all that
He sees us suffering yet shed no tears
Willy Wonka, Willy Wonka! He's a splendid splendid man
Willy Wonka, Willy Wonka! just shake with him your hand
Willy Wonka, Willy Wonk! He's a splendid splendid man
Willy Wonka, Willy Wonka! at least in supply and demand
Demand, Demand, Demand; Oompa Loompas to be Damned!
The use of the word Oompa Loompahas become a derogatory racial term used for our people. Our own use of it is a satire on the treatment which we have received form people such as Mr. Wonka.
Meanwhile, back in my home country, the Oipa Lipia had grown in popularity amongst the people. As a result, our man power as well as our strength had also grown. Tribal divisions amongst our people had virtually disappeared. Now, the conflict was between the Oipa Lipia's for freedom and the Mercenaries for wealth and power Mr. Wonka had promised them. While the number of individuals employed by Wonka was vastly outnumbered by the forces in our Rebellion, they were much better equipped, and had vast technological superiority ( Guns, for one thing).
General Hemmistring decided that now was as good any as any to strike the traitorous mercenaries. I was by this time twenty-seven, we had been fighting for more then a decade. The General had become a sort of father figure to me. I had become a sort of trusted advisor to him, a sort of second in command. I guess he thought I possessed a talent in the area of tactics.
The General wanted to meet the enemy in decisive battle. I advised against it. He went along with it anyway. At the battle, we lost many men (including the General himself), and were forced to retreat. After the battle, many men deserted. That is how I was left in command of a small rag tag and defeated army.
I retreated into the woods, and the Oipa Lipia went back to guerrilla warfare, this time striking at the supply lines of Willy Wonka's army, I cannot tel you where. All I can tell you is that is no longer advisable to "follow the Yellow Brick Road". I doubt if we can last much longer.
Please, sir, please let my people go. Please redeem the sins of you mentor by freeing an enslaved people
Give my regards to your Grandfather,
Samwise Gamgee VIII
