The Brazilian Town Where the American Confederacy Lives On
Feb 6, 2015 9:03:22 GMT -6
bonhommearmonica likes this
Post by adjensen on Feb 6, 2015 9:03:22 GMT -6
This is a very interesting story… I'd like to visit the place sometime, as an historian, I have long had an interest in Confederate culture. Sad that slavery and racism still figures into it, though.
The Brazilian Town Where the American Confederacy Lives On
The Brazilian Town Where the American Confederacy Lives On
The mayor of the nearby town Santa Bárbara d'Oeste surveyed his assembled constituents and welcomed the state representatives in attendance. "It's the first time I have the honor being here as mayor," he beamed, leaning over the microphone as descendants in homemade hoop skirts and sewn Confederate grays standing behind him hoisted flags up long, thin wooden poles. "But I've been here many times as a spectator, a fan." The banners of São Paulo, Brazil, Texas, the United States, and the Confederacy flapped languidly in the breeze. "North American immigration has helped build our region, has helped build Santa Bárbara d'Oeste, has helped build the city of Americana," he proclaimed. "That's what we celebrate today."
By and large, the thousands of Texans and Alabamans and Georgians who sailed to Cuba and Mexico and Brazil failed. They folded into cities and set up doomed plantations on rain-forest plots. By 1918, they'd dwindled enough to merit ethnographic study, and the American Geographical Society dispatched researchers to learn their ways.
But not Americana. Led by an Alabaman colonel, its settlers introduced cotton and turned the town into an industrial textile powerhouse. For generations their children spoke English with a drawl. Today the city of 200,000 boasts Latin America's largest cowboy-rodeo arena. The festa brings it great pride.
By and large, the thousands of Texans and Alabamans and Georgians who sailed to Cuba and Mexico and Brazil failed. They folded into cities and set up doomed plantations on rain-forest plots. By 1918, they'd dwindled enough to merit ethnographic study, and the American Geographical Society dispatched researchers to learn their ways.
But not Americana. Led by an Alabaman colonel, its settlers introduced cotton and turned the town into an industrial textile powerhouse. For generations their children spoke English with a drawl. Today the city of 200,000 boasts Latin America's largest cowboy-rodeo arena. The festa brings it great pride.
