West and Northern European or Protestant [[White Brazilians]] as [[English Brazilians|English]], [[Scottish Brazilians|Scottish]], [[Irish Brazilians|Irish]], [[Dutch Brazilians|Dutch]], [[Scandinavian Brazilians|Scandinavian]], Finnish, Latvian, [[German Brazilians|German]] (ethnic Germans also among [[Czech Brazilians|Czech]], [[Russian Brazilians|Russian]] and [[Polish Brazilians|Polish]] immigrants), [[Austrian Brazilians|Austrian]], [[Swiss Brazilians|Swiss]], [[French Brazilians|French]], [[Luxembourgish Brazilians|Luxembourger]] and [[Belgian Brazilians]]"}},"i":0}}]}" id="mwCQ">Ethnic group
Descendants of Americans during Confederado feast in Santa Bárbara d'Oeste | |
Total population | |
---|---|
260,000 [1] | |
Regions with significant populations | |
São Paulo · Espírito Santo · Rio de Janeiro · Paraná · Pará · Minas Gerais · Bahia · Pernambuco | |
Languages | |
Brazilian Portuguese • American English and Spanish | |
Religion | |
Protestantism and Roman Catholicism and others | |
Related ethnic groups | |
Other American and Brazilian people, especially Confederados and other European Americans, Brazilian diaspora in English-speaking countries, other White Latin Americans West and Northern European or Protestant White Brazilians as English, Scottish, Irish, Dutch, Scandinavian, Finnish, Latvian, German (ethnic Germans also among Czech, Russian and Polish immigrants), Austrian, Swiss, French, Luxembourger and Belgian Brazilians |
An American Brazilian (Portuguese : américo-brasileiro, norte-americano-brasileiro, estadunidense-brasileiro) is a Brazilian person who is of full, partial or predominant American descent or a U.S.-born immigrant in Brazil.
The Confederados is a cultural sub-group in the nation of Brazil. They are the descendants of people who emigrated from the Confederate States of America to Brazil with their families after the American Civil War.
At the end of the American Civil War in the 1860s, a migration of Confederates to Brazil began, with the total number of immigrants estimated in the thousands. They settled primarily in Southern and Southeastern Brazil: in Americana, Campinas, São Paulo, Santa Bárbara d'Oeste, Juquiá, New Texas, Xiririca (now Eldorado), Rio de Janeiro and Rio Doce. A few other places also received immigrants: one colony settled in Santarém, Pará – in the north on the Amazon River [2] – and the states of Bahia and Pernambuco also received a significant number of American immigrants. [3]
That was one of the main reasons why emperor Dom Pedro II became the first foreign chief of state and head of government to visit the U.S. capital; he also attended the Centennial Exposition in the largest city in Pennsylvania. [4] More recently, other waves of American nationals became residents in the country. [5]
After the end of the American Civil War, the Confederates found themselves in a very difficult economic situation, having their states completely devastated by the war. Not only the economic issue, as well as the persecution and discrimination that followed against the Confederate population, forced them to seek better living conditions. This flight was the largest population exodus in U.S. history. [6]
They heard about Brazil and the advantages that the emperor gave to anyone who knew how to grow cotton. Before the war, the U.S. South was the world's biggest cotton exporter, exporting to the looms of England and France. The Brazilian Emperor Dom Pedro II, in his forties, saw the opportunity for Brazil to enter the market and encouraged the arrival of cotton planters from the southern U.S. states to Brazil. [6]
Embittered and wounded, the White American southerners had to draw a little heat from the ashes to keep warm. Many sold their properties, gathered their belongings and came to Brazil, to a land where there were no wars, no trampling and no confiscation of goods. [6]
Even before the end of the war in 1865, there was already talk of emigrating to Brazil, but very little was known about this country. After the war ended, there was such a revival of the issue that several emigration companies were formed. Representatives were sent to Brazil to check the land, climate and facilities offered by the emperor. [7]
In November 1865, the state of South 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. [7]
Many Southerners who accepted the Emperor's offer lost their land during the war, were unwilling to live under a conquering army, or simply did not expect an improvement in the southern economic situation. Furthermore, Brazil would not ban slavery until 1888. The Confederates were the first organized Protestant group to settle in Brazil. [7]
On December 27, 1865, Colonel and Senator William Hutchinson Norris of Alabama landed in the port of Rio de Janeiro. In 1866, William and his son Robert Norris climbed the Serra do Mar, stopped in São 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 marsh. They were also offered the land where São Caetano do Sul is today, and they refused for the same reason. They decided to go to Campinas, but at the time, the railroad went only 10 miles beyond São Paulo, and it was no advantage to take it, as Campinas is 45 miles from São Paulo. So the Norris bought an ox cart and headed for Campinas. They took 15 days to reach the city, and there they stayed for a while looking for land, until they cast their sights on the plain that stretched from Campinas to Vila Nova da Constituição, current Piracicaba. [8]
The Norris bought land from the Domingos da Costa Machado sesmaria and established themselves on the banks of Ribeirão Quilombo, at the time belonging to the municipality of Santa Bárbara d'Oeste and where today is the center of the city of Americana. Upon his arrival, Colonel Norris began to give practical courses in agriculture 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 their gardens. The Colonel wrote to his family that he had made US$5,000 for that alone. In mid-1867, the rest of his family arrived, accompanied by many relatives. [8]
Numerous farms were founded by North Americans who cultivated and processed cotton. They established an intense trade, notably from 1875 onwards, with the installation of the Santa Barbara Station by the Companhia Paulista de Estrada de Ferro. Due to the constant presence of these immigrants, 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 the train station, also dates from this period. This industry really played a very important role in the foundation and development of Americana. The education of children was one of the priorities for American families who set up schools on the properties and hired teachers from the United States. The teaching methods developed by American teachers proved to be so efficient that they were later adopted by Brazilian official education. [8]
Religious services were celebrated on the properties by pastors who moved between various properties and the various centers of American immigration. In 1895 the first Presbyterian Church was founded in the village of Estação. Due to the prohibition of burying people of other faiths in the cemeteries of cities administered by the Catholic Church, American immigrants began to bury their dead near the farmhouse. This cemetery became known as the Campo Cemetery, currently a tourist attraction in the city of Santa Bárbara d'Oeste. Even today the descendants of American families are buried there. It is in this place that descendants gather periodically for religious cults and parties around the chapel founded in the 19th century. [8]
Jason Williams Stone, an American immigrant of British descent from Dana, Massachusetts, United States, moved to Brazil before the American Civil War, and ended up becoming a tobacco and rubber farmer, soon staying very rich. Jason's plantations, which had more than five thousand hectares, were called Colonia Stone, and 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 of Manaus and Itacoatiara, in Amazonas. [9]
The city of Santarém, in the state of Pará, received a wave of refugee 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 called The 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 the business and political life of the region. [10]
It is not known how many immigrants came to Brazil as war refugees, but unprecedented research in the records of the port of Rio de Janeiro, by Betty Antunes de Oliveira, shows that around 20,000 U.S. citizens entered Brazil between 1865 and 1885. [10]
The first generation of Confederates remained an island community. As is typical, in the third generation, most families had already married native Brazilians or immigrants from other origins. Confederate descendants increasingly began to speak the Portuguese language and identify themselves as Brazilians. As the region around the municipalities of Santa Bárbara d'Oeste and Americana became a hub for sugarcane production and society became more mobile, the confederates moved to larger cities in search of jobs urban areas. Currently, only a few families of descendants still live on land owned by their ancestors. The descendants of the confederates are more 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, a descendant organization 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, while Southern 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 of Sons of Confederate Veterans, an organization of American descendants, to visit civil war battlefields, participate in reenactments, or visit the places where their ancestors lived. [11]
The Confederate flag in Brazil did not acquire the same political symbolism as it has in the United States. After then-Governor Jimmy Carter's visit to the region in 1972, the government of Americana even incorporated the Confederate flag into its coat of arms (although most of the Italian-descendent population removed it a few years later from the city's official symbol, as the descendants of the Confederates 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 their country's southerners. [11]
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. As Protestants, they were prohibited by the Catholic 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 U.S. immigration to Brazil. [12]
The American immigrants introduced into their new home many new foods, such as pecans, Georgia peanuts and watermelon; 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, and Methodist). [13]
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 emigres were some 20,000 Southerners, from 12 southern states (i.e. Arkansas, Alabama and Mississippi) who preferred the Brazilian wilderness to life under Yankee rule after the Civil War. [15]
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 |
Today, Brazil is home to many American schools. [16]
-Chapel International School
-Pan American Christian Academy
- St. Francis College
-American School of Campinas
-American School of Rio de Janeiro
-ICS – International Christian School – Rio
-Our Lady of Mercy School
-Brasília International School
-American School of Belo Horizonte
-Pan American School of Porto Alegre
-International School of Curitiba
Confederados is the Brazilian name for Confederate expatriates, all white Southerners, who fled the Southern United States during Reconstruction, and their Brazilian descendants. They were enticed to Brazil by offers of cheap land from Emperor Dom Pedro II, who had hoped to gain expertise in cotton farming. The regime in Brazil had a number of features that attracted the Confederados, among these political decentralization, and a relatively high commitment to free trade. The continuing legality of slavery was another factor, though few Confederados actually acquired slaves in Brazil.
Americana is a municipality (município) located in the Brazilian state of São Paulo. It is part of the Metropolitan Region of Campinas. The population is 237,240 in an area of 133.91 km2 (51.70 sq mi). The original settlement developed around the local railway station, founded in 1875, and the development of a cotton weaving factory in a nearby farm.
Immigration to Brazil is the movement to Brazil of foreign peoples to reside permanently. It should not be confused with the forcible bringing of people from Africa as slaves. Latin Europe accounted for four-fifths of the arrivals. This engendered a strikingly multicultural society. Yet over a few generations, Brazil absorbed these new populations in a manner that resembles the experience of the rest of the New World.
The Rodovia Bandeirantes is a highway in the state of São Paulo, Brazil.
Santa Bárbara d'Oeste is a municipality in the State of São Paulo in Brazil. It is part of the Metropolitan Region of Campinas. It lies about 138 kilometres (86 mi) northwest of the State capital. It occupies an area of 272.2 square kilometres (105.1 sq mi), of which 43.1 square kilometres (16.6 sq mi) is urban. In 2020, the population was estimated at 194,390 by the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics, making it the 43rd most populous city in São Paulo and the sixth largest in the metropolitan region of Campinas.
White Brazilians refers to Brazilian citizens who are considered or self-identify as "white", typically because of European or Levantine ancestry.
Amazonian Jews are the Jews of the Amazon basin, mainly descendants of Moroccan Jews who migrated to northern Brazil and Peru in the 19th and early 20th centuries. The migrants were attracted to the growing trade in the Amazon region, especially during the rubber boom, as well as to the newly established religious tolerance. They settled in localities along the Amazon River, such as Belém, Cametá, Santarém, Óbidos, Parintins, Itacoatiara and Manaus in Brazil, some venturing as far as Iquitos in Peru.
William Hutchinson Norris was an American politician who was the founder of the city of Americana and a settlement in Santa Bárbara d'Oeste. A notable Confederate during American Civil War, Norris was a significant figure in the history of the Confederados following the war.
Russian Brazilians are Brazilian citizens of full or partial Russian ethnic background or Russian-born people residing in Brazil. The term can also refer to someone with a Brazilian mother and Russian father, or vice versa.
Confederate colonies were made up of Confederate refugees who were displaced or fled their homes during or immediately after the American Civil War. They migrated to various countries, but especially Brazil, where slavery remained legal, and to a lesser extent Mexico and British Honduras.
The Piracicaba River is a river of São Paulo state in southeastern Brazil. It is a tributary of the Tietê River, which it joins in the reservoir created by Barra Bonita Dam. There is also another Piracicaba river in the state of Minas Gerais, named after the one from São Paulo state, since the early colonizers of Minas Gerais largely came from São Paulo.
The Tietê Bus Terminal is the largest bus terminal in Latin America, and the second largest in the world, after the Port Authority Bus Terminal in New York City. The terminal is located in the Santana district in the city of São Paulo, Brazil. The official name in Portuguese is Terminal Rodoviário Governador Carvalho Pinto, named after Carlos Alberto Alves de Carvalho Pinto, a former Governor of the State of São Paulo.
The Brazilian municipal elections of 2012 took place on October 7 and on October 28. Over 138 million voters chose mayors, deputy mayors and city councillors for the 5,568 municipalities of Brazil. These were the first elections in which the recently registered parties Partido Pátria Livre (PPL) and Partido Social Democrático (PSD) participated; they were both recognized by the Superior Electoral Court in 2011. Political parties whose candidates wished to run for the 2012 elections had to be registered at the TSE for at least one year before the election date, while candidates also had to be affiliated to a party for the same period of time. Conventions for the selection of candidates within the parties occurred between 10 and 30 June, while the registry of candidates and alliances with the Regional Electoral Courts took place until July 5. Electoral campaign was authorized from the moment a candidacy had been registered. The free electoral program – two daily slots on free-to-air TV and radio for political advertising paid by the Electoral Justice fund – ran weekdays from 21 August until 4 October. According to the current Brazilian electoral law, the two-round system – should the leading candidate receive less than 50% +1 of the votes – is only available for cities with more than 200,000 voters. This includes all state capitals, with the exception of Boa Vista, Roraima and Palmas, Tocantins, plus 59 other municipalities. The free electoral program for the second round ran from 13 October until 26 October.
The São Paulo Macrometropolis or São Paulo Megalopolis, also known as Expanded Metropolitan Complex, is a Brazilian megalopolis that emerged through the existing process of conurbation between the São Paulo's metropolitan areas located around the Greater São Paulo, with more than 30 million inhabitants, or 74 percent of São Paulo State's population, and is one of the most populous urban agglomerations in the world.
Events in the year 1893 in Brazil.
Jacob Philip Wingerter was a Protestant colporteur evangelist who spent most of his life campaigning for the Presbyterian church in Brazil.
The Metropolitan Region of Campinas is an administrative division of the state of São Paulo in Brazil. It was created in 2000, and consists of the following municipalities:
Pérola Ellis Byington was a Brazilian philanthropist and social activist. She was an advocate for mother and children's health assistance in Brazil during the first half of 20th century.
The Immigration Museum is a public museum located in the city of Santa Bárbara d'Oeste, in the countryside of the state of São Paulo, Brazil. It was founded on January 30, 1988, from the collection of the Fraternity of American Descendants, a civil society organization responsible for managing the Cemetery of the Americans. It is subordinated to the Municipal Secretariat of Culture and Tourism.
Festa dos Confederados is a festival which takes place at the end of April in Santa Barbara, d'Oeste in the state of São Paulo, Brazil. The festival commemorates the history of the Confederados, who were a group of Confederate soldiers fleeing to Brazil to continue practicing slavery after the defeat of the Confederate States of America following the American Civil War, as Brazil was one of the last countries to legally bar slavery. As years have passed, there has been an increase in contention around the holiday as Americans see the symbol of the Confederate flag as a symbol of historical racism, and Brazilian Confederados see it as something that connects them to their ancestors.