Journalist Stephen Bloom writes about Americana, a city in Brazil settled by 94 disgruntled American Confederates after they lost the Civil War. He first visited the community decades ago and found descendants of the original settlers who still spoke the English of the American South circa 1865.
As many as 7000 Americans took up the Brazilian government's guarantee of arable land at twenty-two cents an acre in exchange for the Confederates' cotton-growing knowledge.
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Headstone of one of the 440 graves at the Americana cemetery.
Wheelock, born in the U.S. in 1898, was a relatively late arrival
to the Confederate outpost in Brazil. (Photo courtesy Stephen G. Bloom) |
Bloom last visited the the community in 2001 and found few of the Confederate descendants were left in Americana. After six generations, they have finally been absorbed into the country to which they emigrated.
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