Ah, sorry!

No, they're not. I was imagining something along the lines of the relationship between IRL Normans, Vikings, and Franks, where the Normans are Vikings who turned their allegiance over to the Franks. 

By this analogy, my character would belong to a people who have cut off ties with their more warlike brethren to settle in the north-west and in return, they protect the waters around the area. This is probably doing some world-building in your world, so that's my bad. If that's not alright, just let me know and I can think of something else.

That's a pretty shoddy explanation, but in short, MC would be part of a subset of sea peoples who have chose to settle down but in doing so pretty much declared war on their own people on behalf of Dawnhilt.