The Study of Racialism

I find it ironic the Professor Williams would make such an incorrect claim considering dark skin color of her family definitely did not dominate in her

Aside from the genetic realities of skin tone, I think this lady makes some good points about racialism in the United States. "Confederate Heritage Month" ?

The Confederados are a cultural sub-group in the nation of Brazil. They are the descendants of Confederate soldiers who fled to Brazil with their families after the American Civil War.

At the end of the American Civil War, Emperor Dom Pedro II of Brazil was interested in having cotton crops due to the high prices and, through Masonry contacts, recruited experienced cotton farmers for his nation. Dom Pedro offered the potential immigrants subsidies and tax breaks. General Robert E. Lee advised Southerners not to flee to South America but many ignored his advice and set out to establish a new life away from the destruction of war. Many Southerners who took the Emperor's offer had lost their land during the war, were unwilling to live under a conquering army, or simply did not expect an improvement in the South's economic position. In addition, Brazil would not outlaw slavery until 1888. Although a number of historians say that the existence of slavery was an appeal, Alcides Gussi, an independent researcher of Campinas University, found that only four families owned a total of 66 slaves from 1868 to 1875. So, it is an established fact that the immigrants did not revert to large-scale, slave-intensive agriculture. Most of the immigrants were from the states of Alabama, Texas, Louisiana, Georgia, and South Carolina.

It is unknown just how many immigrants came to Brazil as refugees from the war, but an unpublished research in the Rio de Janeiro Port by Betty Antunes de Oliveira counts some 9,000 Americans that entered Brazil from. Of those, an unknown number returned to the United States as conditions improved there. Many immigrants renounced their American citizenship and adopted Brazilian citizenship.

The immigrants settled in various places in Brazil ranging from the urban areas of Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo to the northern Amazon region and Paraná in the south. But most of the Confederados settled in the area around present-day Santa Bárbara D'Oeste and Americana, Brazil near São Paulo, derived from the name Vila dos Americanos. This was the name given by natives in the region due to its American population.

The first original Confederados known to arrive was Colonel William H. Norris of Alabama—the colony at Santa Bárbara D'Oeste is sometimes called the Norris Colony.

Dom Pedro's program was judged a success for both the immigrants and the Brazilian government. The settlers brought with them modern agricultural techniques and new crops such as watermelon, and pecans that soon spread among the native Brazilian farmers. Some foods of the American South also crossed over and became part of general Brazilian culture such as chess pie, vinegar pie, and southern fried chicken.

The original Confederados continued many elements of American culture and established the first Baptist churches in Brazil. They also established public schools and provided education to their female children, which was unusual in Brazil at the time. The Confederados also founded Colégio Internacional in Campinas and the Escola Americana in São Paulo to provide higher education to their children.

Surprising to modern Americans, the Confederados educated their slaves and black freemen in their new schools. To their Brazilian neighbors this practice was considered unusual and even scandalous.

Descendants of the immigrants

The first generation of Confederados remained an insular community, but by the third generation, most of the families had intermarried with native Brazilians or immigrants of other origins. Descendants of the Confederados increasingly spoke the Portuguese language and identified themselves as Brazilians. As the area around Santa Bárbara d'Oeste and Americana turned increasingly to the production of sugar cane and society became more mobile, the Confederados drifted to cities. Today, only a few descendant families still live on the original land owned by their ancestors. The descendants of the original Confederados are mostly scattered throughout Brazil but maintain the headquarters of their descendant organization at the Campo Cemetery, in Santa Bárbara D'Oeste.

The descendants still foster a connection with their history through the Fraternity of American Descendants, a descendant organization dedicated to preserving the unique mixed culture. The Confederados also have an annual festival, called the Festa Confederada which is dedicated to fund the Campo Cemetery. The festival is marked by Confederate flags, traditional dress of Confederate uniforms and hoop skirts, food of the American south with a Brazilian flair, and dances and music popular in the American south during the antebellum period. The descendants maintain affection for the Confederate flag even though they all consider themselves completely Brazilian. Modern Confederados distance themselves from any of the racial controversies.

In Brazil the Confederate flag has not previously had the racial stigma that has been attached to it in the United States. Many descendants are of mixed race and reflect the varied racial categories that make up Brazilian society in their physical appearance. Recently the Brazilian residents of Americana, now of primarily Italian-descent, have removed the Confederate flag from the city's crest citing the fact that Confederados now make up only 10 percent of the city's population. The Confederate flag was associated with the city in the wake of Jimmy Carter's visit to the region.

Many Confederados have traveled to the United States at the invitation of the Sons of Confederate Veterans, an American descendant's organization, to visit Civil War battlefields, attend reenactments, or see where their ancestors lived in the US.

The center of Confederado culture is the Campo Cemetery in Santa Bárbara d'Oeste, where most of the original Confederados from the region were buried. Due to their Protestant religion, they established their own cemetery. 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.

In 1972 Then Governor (and future President) Jimmy Carter of Georgia visited the city of Americana and visited the grave of his wife Rosalyn's great-uncle who was one of the original Confederados.

I had been thinking a little on this case, and even though the parents have been the ones put on the hot seat, it's really their lawyers who chose the position and informed them of what to say.

The fact that any trained lawyer would find this racial argument as their best strategy says more about the society than about the specific individuals in this case. Those lawyers would likely be aiming for a trial by jury which would mean their money is on the American public to find this racial argument a sound and logical way of viewing this situation.

Now if Brazilian Confederates of mixed ancestry can consider Confederacy more than just nostalgia on racialism, why couldn't mnay Americans do so as well?

From what I get from the information you posted on the Confederados, something changed in their perspectives and their society.

I never understood why people are proud their ancestors were traitors. I would be ashamed. I also never fully understood why Jefferson Davis and the rest of the leaders of the Confederacy (political and military) were not hanged for treason after all the death they caused. Every single one of them should have been strung up (my personal belief would be drawn and quartered but you know).

Buy my book, if you want to learn more, or read the three online essays: Barbadian South Carolina: A Class-Based Color Line, Antebellum Louisiana and Alabama: Two Color Lines, Three Endogamous Groups, and No Color Line in Spanish Florida.

"traitor" is really a matter of opinion isn't it?

Frank, I must confess that I need to read more of your writings and research, and I will do that eventually. If you just could have thrown in more passionate adventures and fewer numbers.

Now, I'm in no way a big Confederacy fan for one obvious reason, but "traitor" is really a matter of opinion isn't it? After all, to many of my Loyalist ancestors, your ancestors were traitors and thieves, yet I'm sure they didn't see it that way.

events far removed from the present just won't carry the same weight for some people. Some have the ''nostalgia gene'' some don't. For quite a lot of them I'm sure it is nothing more than honoring relatives who were caught up in a situation far beyond their control. I wouldn't take that from them.

My experience with nostalgia nuts who wave the so-called Confederate flag today (both in the U.S. and in Brazil) is that most are abysmally ignorant of their own past.

The heritage buffs that we met in Americana, Brazil, had no idea of the horrific state-sponsored anti-Black terrorism that the United States went through during the Jim Crow era, a half-century after their ancestors left the South. After all, the Confederates in Brazil sent their slave kids to school with their own kids, and manumitted Brazlian slaves were accepted into mainstream working-class society (including being suitable marriage partners).

Here in the 'States, many Confederate re-enactors of my acquaintance sincerely believe that the U.S. Civil War had nothing to do with slavery, and that hundreds of thousands of African Americans fought on the Confederate side in the doomed struggle to resist Yankee oppression. They are honestly mystified as to why African Americans resent the so-called Confederate flag, or think that the resentment is merely Yankee political-correctness run amok.

Perhaps we should split off a thread called "The so-called Confederate flag," since there is so much misinformation and ignorance about this unauthentic political symbol.

It's amazing how ignorant people are of American history. I think it's sometimes deliberately so. I realize that many Southerners have been brainwashed into believing the Civil War was just a "War Between the States," but once someone is an adult and has access to real history it's a different story.

It's mystifying that people really don't want to believe that slavery was a horrific institution.

Frank, I realize that you are trying to teach children but is teaching about the "kind compassionate Jesus-loving slave owner" the right thing?

To avoid personally falling into such a trap, I suggested any introduction to moral philosophy that includes Kant, Bentham (or Mill), and a selection of reilgious leaders (Zoroaster, Buddha, Jesus).

Most people prefer to believe that evil is done by evil people. By hugging this childhood fantasy close, Blacks can say that all Whites are bad. And Whites can say, those people back then were possessed by demons (like 1936-45 Germans), but I am not like them. I am a good person. I could never do wrong. I follow the rules.