Completed: The Confederados - Old South Immigrants in Brazil, edited by Cyrus B. Dawsey and James M. Dawsey

I started this book forever ago, and this is not one of the ones that sat around awhile waiting to be blogged - I only just finished it a week or so ago. 

I first heard about the subjects of this book on Imgur (www.imgur.com - check it out if you need an awesome place to waste time but also hear about cool things like the subject of this book). Someone put up a post about southern American (as in from the south of the USA) emigrants who moved to Brazil following the end of the Civil War. They moved to avoid a Yankee government, to avoid the poverty and lawlessness of the South following the war, to evangelize.

"Never was there greater nakedness and desolation in a civilized society" - this is how one southerner described life in South Carolina following the war. They went to escape this, if they could afford to go. Although Brazil still practiced slavery at this time, it doesn't appear to have been a primary impetus for the move. It is amazing to think of some elderly folks in Brazil whose first language is English, with a pure southern sound from a century ago (the linguistics of which is fascinating - see chapter 10), who get together to reminisce about the past and to speak fondly and protectively of their adventurous grandparents. 

I think my favorite anecdote was the final one of the text. It discussed Jimmy Carter, prior to his presidency, along with his wife Rosalynn and press secretary Jodie Powell, visiting the Southern settlement now known as Americana in Brazil. Ms. Powell later reflected on the visit, admitting that all three of them became quite emotional when speaking to a crowd at a commemorative monument in Americana. She wrote that "[n]one of us could explain exactly why Americana touched us so deeply. Part of it was the feeling that we had discovered a part of ourselves that we hardly knew existed." (p. 210). I think I would feel similar emotions if I learned of a small group of Canadians who had moved to somewhere far away and maintained language and traditions from a century ago. A group that history had mainly forgotten - it's amazing to think. 

Title: The Confederados - Old South Immigrants in Brazil

Published: 1995

Pages: 210

Total Books Blogged: 16

Total Pages: 5195