Confederate party at Americana, São Paulo.
After the Civil War, emperor D. Pedro II invited southern plantation owners to settle in Brazil, where slavery was still legal. About 3,000 families moved in to the São Paulo countryside, and about 10,000 “confederado” descendants remain.
Most of the confederados moved to the cities, intermarried with Brazilian society and are now indiscernible from other Brazilians, except for English surnames and the somewhat awkward tradition of remembering the Civil war and displaying the Confederate banner ever now an then.
Dom Pedro II facilitated the immigration of former Confederates into Brazil, providing subsidized travel to South America and cheap land and citizenship upon arrival, at a time when the country was still embroiled in a war of its own against Paraguay. Here’s a snippet of an article about Confederates immigrating to Brazil from the New York Times:
- 7 months ago
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