 The Confederados at Festa Confederada | |
| Total population | |
|---|---|
| Thousands of descendants across Brazil[1] | |
| Regions with significant populations | |
| Americana · Santa Bárbara d'Oeste | |
| Languages | |
| English (Southern American English) · Portuguese | |
| Religion | |
| Protestantism · Irreligion | |
| Related ethnic groups | |
| White Southerners andBlack Southerners |
Confederados (Portuguese pronunciation:[kõfedeˈɾadus]) is theBrazilian name forConfederateimmigrants, allwhite Southerners who fled theSouthern United States duringReconstruction, and their Brazilian descendants. They were enticed toBrazil by offers of cheap land fromEmperorDomPedro II, who had hoped to gain expertise incotton farming. The regime in Brazil had a number of features that attracted the Confederados, namely the continued legality of slavery, but also political decentralization and a relatively high commitment to free trade.[2]
It is estimated that up to 20,000 American Confederates immigrated to theEmpire of Brazil from the Southern United States after theAmerican Civil War. Initially, most settled in the current state ofSão Paulo, where they founded the city ofAmericana, which was once part of the neighboring city ofSanta Bárbara d'Oeste. The descendants of otherConfederados would later be found throughout Brazil.
The center of Confederado culture is the Campo Cemetery inSanta Bárbara d'Oeste, where most of the original Confederados from the region were buried. Because of theirProtestant religion, they could not be buried in a Catholic cemetery, so they created their own cemetery, the first non-Catholic, non-indigenous cemetery in Brazil. The Confederado community has also established a Museum of Immigration at Santa Bárbara d'Oeste to present the history of Brazilian immigration and highlight its benefits to the nation.
The descendants still foster a connection with their history through the Fraternity ofAmerican Descendants, an organization dedicated to preserving the unique mixed culture. The Confederados also have an annual festival, called theFesta Confederada, which is used to fund the Campo Cemetery. The festival is marked byConfederate flags, traditional dress ofConfederateuniforms andhoop skirts, food of theAmerican South with a Brazilian flair, and dances and music popular in theAmerican South during theAntebellum period.
Although the amount of Confederado descendants living in Brazil today is difficult to estimate, in 2016 they were believed to number in the thousands.[3]
After the war, manyConfederate planters were unwilling to live by the new rules imposed by the Union's victory and the constitutional changes that followed: an end tochattel slavery, a new labor regime, and the loss of political power that came with African-American suffrage. Accustomed to raising cotton with the labor of enslaved people, some looked elsewhere in the Western Hemisphere for a place where their old life could be continued.
"Many persons who, from long habit and fondly cherished theories, have become strongly attached to the institution of African slavery, fancy that in Brazil they will find an opportunity for the permanent use of that system of labor — Brazil and the Spanish possessions being the only two slaveholding communities remaining in the civilized world," theNew OrleansDaily Picayune wrote in September 1865.[4]
The BrazilianEmperor Dom Pedro II saw an opportunity in the economic disruption in the southern United States and hoped to build up itscotton production for export to the looms ofEngland andFrance, which had long relied on theDeep South. The Emperor encouraged the immigration of cotton planters from the former Confederacy to enable that expansion.[5]
Even before the end of the war in 1865, there was already talk of immigrating to Brazil, but very little was known about this country. After the war ended, there was such a revival of the issue that severalemigrationcompanies were formed. Representatives were sent to Brazil to check the land, climate, and facilities offered by the emperor.[6]
In November 1865, the state ofSouth Carolina formed a colonization society and sent Major Robert Meriwether and Dr. H. A. Shaw, among others, to Brazil to investigate the possibility of establishing a colony. On the way back, they published a report mentioning that two lords had already bought land and settled here.[6] Slaves were cheap, they reported.
A confederate from South Carolina, James McFadden Gaston, traveled extensively in central Brazil. Upon return to the US, Gaston published a book titledHunting a Home in Brazil in 1867. The book was a guide for would-be colonizers and stated in the introduction, "All the requisites of a desirable home have been found in Brazil."[7]
Many Southerners who accepted the Emperor's offer lost their farms and homes during the war, were unwilling to live under occupation by Federal troops during Reconstruction, or simply did not expect an improvement in the Southern economic situation in the foreseeable future. Furthermore, Brazil would not ban slavery until 1888. The Confederates were the first organizedProtestant group to settle in Brazil.[6]
On December 27, 1865, Colonel and SenatorWilliam Hutchinson Norris ofAlabama landed in the port ofRio de Janeiro. In 1866, William and his son Robert Norris climbed theSerra do Mar, stopped inSão Paulo and speculated on land. They were offered land for free in what is now the neighborhood of Brás, but he did not accept it because it was marshy. They were also offered the land whereSão Caetano do Sul is today, and they refused it for the same reason. They decided to go toCampinas, but at the time, the railroad went only 10 miles beyond São Paulo while Campinas is 35 miles further, so the Norrises bought an ox-cart and headed for Campinas. They took 15 days to reach the city, and there they stayed for a while looking forland, until they cast their sights on the plain that stretched from Campinas to Vila Nova da Constituição, currentPiracicaba.[8]
The Norrises bought land from the Domingos da Costa Machadosesmaria and established themselves on the banks of Ribeirão Quilombo, at the time belonging to the municipality ofSanta Bárbara d'Oeste, today the city ofAmericana. Upon his arrival, Colonel Norris began to give practical courses inagriculture to farmers in the region, interested in cotton cultivation and new agricultural techniques. The plow he brought from the United States caused so much sensation and curiosity that, within a short time, they had a practical agricultural school, with many students who paid him for the privilege of learning and still cultivating theirgardens. The Colonel wrote to his family that he had made US$5,000 from that alone. In mid-1867, the rest of his family arrived, accompanied by many relatives.[8] Many Confederados besides Norris became known foragricultural education and improvement ofcotton productivity.[9]
Numerousfarms were founded by immigrants from the United States, commemorated today at theSanta Bárbara d'Oeste Immigration Museum.[10] Cultivation and processing ofcotton were significant. They established an intense trade, notably from 1875 onwards, with the arrival of the railroad and the installation of the Santa Barbara Station by theCompanhia Paulista de Estradas de Ferro. Due to the constant presence of theseimmigrants, the village that was formed in the vicinity of the Station became known as "Vila dos Americanos", or "Vila Americana", and gave rise to the current city of Americana.[8]
The installation of the Carioba factory by the North American engineer Clement Willmot and Brazilian associates, located one mile from thetrain station, also dates from this period.Manufacturing played a very important role in the foundation and development ofAmericana. The education of children was one of the priorities for American families, who set upschools on the properties and hiredteachers from theUnited States. The teaching methods developed by American teachers[clarification needed] proved to be so efficient that they were later adopted byBrazilian official education.[8]
Religious services were celebrated on the properties bypastors who moved between various properties and the various centers of theAmerican diaspora. In 1895 the firstPresbyterian Church In Brazil? was founded in the village ofEstação. Due to the prohibition of burying people of other faiths in the cemeteries of cities administered by theCatholic Church, American immigrants began to bury their dead near the farmhouse. Thiscemetery became known as the Campo Cemetery, currently a tourist attraction in the city ofSanta Bárbara d'Oeste. Even today the descendants of American families are buried there. It is in this place that descendants gather periodically for religious ceremonies and parties around the 19th-century chapel.[8]
Jason Williams Stone, a man fromDana, Massachusetts who moved to Brazil before the American Civil War, made a fortune as a tobacco and rubber farmer. Stone's plantations, which had more than five thousand hectares, were called Colonia Stone. They were located near the city of Itacoatiara, in Amazonas. Many of his descendants still have the surname "Stone". They are found mainly in the cities ofManaus andItacoatiara, in Amazonas.[11]
The city ofSantarém, in the state ofPará, received a wave of expatriate families from the American Civil War that took place in the South of the United States. The first to land was the Riker family. In the 1970s, David Afton Riker published a book calledThe Last Confederate in the Amazon, which chronicles the saga of this migration and life in the new homeland. The Confederates and their descendants became notable in thebusiness and political life of the region.[12]
It is not known how many Confederado immigrants came to Brazil, but unprecedented research in the records of the port ofRio de Janeiro, by Betty Antunes de Oliveira, shows that around 20,000U.S. citizens entered Brazil between 1865 and 1885.[12]
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The first generation ofConfederados formed a distinct community. As is typical, by the third generation, most families had already intermarried with native Brazilians or immigrants from other origins.Confederados increasingly began to speak thePortuguese language and identify themselves as Brazilians. As the region around the municipalities of Santa Bárbara d'Oeste and Americana became a hub for sugar cane production and society became more mobile,Confederados moved to larger cities in search of jobs in urban areas. Currently, only a fewConfederado families still live on land owned by their ancestors.Confederado descendants are spread throughout Brazil. They maintain their organization's headquarters at the Campo Cemetery, in Santa Bárbara d'Oeste, where there is also a chapel and a memorial.
Descendants make a connection to their history through the American Descendant Fellowship, dedicated to preserving immigrant culture. The descendants of the Confederates also hold an annual festival in Santa Bárbara d'Oeste called "Festa Confederada", which is dedicated to funding the Campo Cemetery. During the festival, Confederate flags and uniforms are worn, whileSouthern American food and dances are served and performed. The descendants maintain affection for the Confederate flag, although they identify themselves as fully Brazilian. Many Confederate descendants traveled to the United States at the invitation ofSons of Confederate Veterans, an organization of American descendants, to visit Civil War battlefields, participate in reenactments, or visit the places where their ancestors lived.[13]
TheConfederate flag in Brazil did not acquire the same political symbolism as it has in the United States. After then-GovernorJimmy Carter's visit to the region in 1972, the city of Americana even incorporated the Confederate flag into itscoat of arms. (It was removed a few years later under pressure fromItalian-descendent residents, as theConfederados now comprise about a tenth of the city's population.) During his visit to Brazil, Carter also visited the city of Santa Bárbara d'Oeste and the grave of a great-uncle of his wife, Rosalynn Carter, at Cemitério do Campo. At the time, Carter noted that Confederate descendants sounded and looked exactly like American southerners.[13]
Today, the Campo Cemetery (and the chapel and memorial located within it) in Santa Bárbara d'Oeste is a memorial, as most of the region's original Confederate immigrants were buried there. AsProtestants, they were prohibited by theCatholic Church from burying their dead in local cemeteries and had to establish their own cemetery. The community of descendants also contributed to the Museum of Immigration, also located in Santa Bárbara d'Oeste, to present the history of USimmigration to Brazil.[14]
The American immigrants introduced into their new home many new foods, such aspecans, Georgia peanuts, andwatermelon; new tools such as the iron plow and kerosene lamps; innovations such as modern dentistry, modern agriculture, and the first blood transfusion; and the first non-Catholic churches (Baptist,Presbyterian, andMethodist).[15] Some foods of the American South also crossed over and became part of general Brazilian culture such aschess pie, vinegar pie, andsouthern fried chicken. The immigrants also establishedpublic schools and provided education to their female children, which was unusual in Brazil at the time.
| State | Immigrants |
|---|---|
| São Paulo | 800 |
| Espírito Santo | 400 |
| Rio de Janeiro | 200 |
| Paraná | 200 |
| Pará | 200 |
| Minas Gerais | 100 |
| Bahia | 85 |
| Pernambuco | 85 |
| Total | 2,070 |
The Confederate migrants were some 20,000 Southerners, from 12 southern states (e.g. Arkansas, Alabama, and Mississippi) who preferred the Brazilian wilderness to life underUnion rule after theCivil War.[17]
| State | Descendants |
|---|---|
| São Paulo | 100,490 |
| Espírito Santo | 50,258 |
| Rio de Janeiro | 25,220 |
| Paraná | 25,000 |
| Pará | 24,800 |
| Minas Gerais | 12,610 |
| Bahia | 10,686 |
| Pernambuco | 10,000 |
| Total | 260,000 |
Yale University history professorRollin G. Osterweis wroteSantarem, a novel about Confederados.[18]
{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
Media related toConfederados at Wikimedia Commons
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