Thrall liberates internment camps

Full History

After the defeat of the Old Horde, the Alliance confined many of the surviving orcs in internment camps. Years of captivity and the fading of demonic influence left numerous prisoners listless. Thrall, who had escaped from Aedelas Blackmoore and recovered knowledge of the Frostwolf clan, regarded their condition as evidence of a broken people rather than a fate that could never be changed. His purpose became to bring them freedom and restore a viable orcish identity.

He did not undertake the struggle alone. Grom Hellscream and the Warsong represented warriors still willing to resist human control, while Orgrim Doomhammer carried the experience and authority of a former warchief. Thrall's growing command brought together different survivors of the earlier conflicts. Some had remained outside the camps, some had been crushed within them, and others remembered the clans before demonic manipulation altered their world.

The liberation campaign attacked the internment system and recruited freed orcs into a rising movement. It was also a struggle over the meaning of the Horde. Thrall sought a unity that did not depend upon the blood of Mannoroth or the secret authority of Gul'dan's warlocks. Shamanic traditions and the welfare of the clans became important parts of the new political identity, even though warriors still had to fight to win their freedom.

Orgrim died in the course of the liberation struggle and passed the mantle of leadership to Thrall. The new warchief later obeyed Medivh's warning and led his followers across the sea to Kalimdor. The New Horde's founding therefore began before the building of Orgrimmar: it was born in the campaign to free the captives and to separate the orcs' future from the curse that had brought the Old Horde to ruin.