The last confederate party to the south, to the south, in Brazil

You may have heard the overly optimistic slogan from the Deep South, “The South will rise again.” There is no doubt that the South fell with the defeat of the Confederacy in the Civil War. But some of the Confederates did not surrender and were not defeated, and in fact never fell. Instead, they moved to Brazil.

In the last days of the Civil War, a good number of Confederates sought to move abroad. The two most favored countries for relocation were Mexico and Brazil. Brazil actively encouraged Confederate immigration before the end of the war with offers of financial assistance in transportation, land ownership, and settlements to come and establish new homes in a country that needed their expertise.

After the defeat of the South, much of the culture of the Confederacy was wiped out during “Reconstruction.” Those who stayed in the South were forced to assimilate into the United States. Those who fled to Brazil were not forced to assimilate into Brazil and still keep the traditions and culture of the Old South alive today.

Some Southerners were fervently opposed to the idea of ​​leaving the South. Among the dissidents was Robert E. Lee. Despite protests from Robert E. Lee, there was an exodus from the south near the end of the Civil War and it declined during the Reconstruction Period.

Several Confederate settlements sprang up in Brazil in the 1860s. There was the Gaston colony in Xiririca near Iguape, the Norris colony in Santa Barbara D’Oeste, “Lizzieland” on the Rio Doce in Linhares, the Hastings settlement on the Amazon River. in Santarem and other lesser known Confederate settlements throughout Brazil. The Norris colony became the largest and most successful of all.

These new settlers were the cream of the Old South crop. Among them were probably the best cotton experts in the world at the time. His superior cotton skills and knowledge paid off. The transplanted Confederates were largely responsible for the sudden increase in cotton production in Brazil. They brought wealth and prosperity to the regions in which they settled.

These settlers did not want to assimilate into the Brazilian culture. Many of the first generation refused to even try to learn the language. They hired teachers from the United States to teach their children. They tried to change Brazil to suit them, and were partially successful in that effort. His educational methods were so efficient that they were finally adopted by the official Brazilian system.

In 1875, the area near the Norris colony received a major boost with the opening of a train station, allowing for easier transportation of cotton to markets. In 1878, an association of Brazilian and American businessmen started a cotton fabric factory near the train station. This cotton fabric factory became known as the “American Village”. It got bigger and more prosperous and is now the city of Americana, the name means “American” in Portuguese. Americana is now a modern Brazilian city of approximately 150,000 inhabitants in the state of Sao Paulo, about 83 miles from the state capital. Textiles are still the largest industry in the city today.

Today, the descendants of Confederate immigrants are scattered throughout Brazil, but have united into a brotherhood, Fraternidade Descendencia Americana, which meets periodically. They have done a good job preserving the culture and traditions of the Deep South. Young Brazilians, some of them descendants of American settlers, still perform period dances to prepare for an annual celebration of Confederate heritage in Americana, Brazil. Their costumes seem straight out of the set of “Gone with the Wind.” The Confederate battle flag “Stars and Bars” was removed from the shield of the city of Americana in 1999. Today in Americana it is considered highly prestigious to have descended from Confederate settlers. Some people still proudly boast of the fact that their ancestors never learned to speak Portuguese. In fact, there are a handful of rebels in Americana who still speak English as their first language today. In a strange twist, English is becoming a fancy second language for some of the wealthiest and most educated Brazilians.