Brazilian Fever Part 1: To Go or Not To Go

Blogger: Amber Lemus

It is in our human nature to fear and avoid change. One of the starkest examples of this is the people of the American South during the Antebellum and Reconstruction eras and brings us to one of the lesser-known chapters of Civil War history.

As the American Civil War came to a close, and the reconstruction began, there were many in the South who could not tolerate the changes that were coming to the country. The Confederates claimed to have fought the war to "preserve their way of life" and that battle had been lost, so many were searching for a way to continue life as they knew it before the war.

The newspapers called it "Brazilian Fever", although Brazil was not the only country that Southerners were considering as an alternative to their homeland. Honduras, Venezuela, and Mexico all offered incentives for planters, especially cotton growers, to immigrate and start plantations or teach cotton growing to others in the country.

Emperor Dom Pedro II of Brazil Circa 1865 Public Domain

 

 It was Brazil, however that had the most enticing offer. Emperor Dom Pedro II offered free transport, cheap or free land, and an easy path to citizenship for cotton planters, because he hoped to capitalize on the downfall of the American South's cotton production and build his economy by exporting cotton to the looms of England and France, who had relied so heavily on Southern production. An even greater draw was that slavery was still legal in Brazil. And as some Southern immigrants noted, slaves were cheap. An important detail for plantation growers who had lost all of their previous workers to emancipation in the United States and couldn't imagine farming successfully without enslaved labor.

This phenomenon was noted in the September 14, 1865 issue of The Times-Picayune Newspaper from New Orleans:

We observe that, in some parts of the country, people are still making preparations to emigrate to Brazil. Immediately after the war, it was supposed that, in consequence of broken fortunes, disappointed hopes, and an 'indisposition to yield placable obedience to the restored authority of the Federal Government' there would be a great exodus from the Southern States...

The article goes on to state:

Moreover, there are other reasons, in the case of Brazil, which ought to check this feeling. Many persons who, from long habit and fondly cherished theories, have become strongly attached to the institution of African slavery, fancy that in Brazil they will find an opportunity for the permanent use of that system of labor Brazil and the Spanish possessions being the only two slaveholding communities remaining in the civilized world. But such hopes would probably be doomed to speedy disappointment. There is not only no guarantee for the continued existence of slave labor in Brazil, but the indications are that emancipation is rapidly approaching in that country. Even the regulations not long since issued and republished by us, which were intended expressly to attract immigration, strongly exhibit the anti-slavery spirit of the Government; and more recently propositions for emancipation have been made and have met with strong support in the Brazilian Parliament. It is almost certain that the time is not distant when that proposition will be carried.

Such persons as might have gone to Brazil with the idea of preserving their association with African slavery, will then find that they have made an exchange in which they lose all and gain nothing.

The article seems an attempt to dissuade readers from embracing the idea of immigration, claiming that the "South needs all her men of thought, of energy, and of intellect, to aid in the great work. of reconstruction." and deeming those who flee to another country "cowards" and the act "censurable" while also emphasizing the risks of such a journey and the uncertainty of the future in other countries, specifically Brazil. This article certainly paints a clear picture of how torn the Southern culture was, and how difficult a decision of this magnitude must have been for those trying to rebuild their lives and fortunes after the war.

Depiction of Slavery in Brazil by Jean-Baptiste Debret
An enslaved person enduring severe punishment in 19th century Brazil
Public Domain

Others, however, were outspoken in their belief that Brazil was the perfect place to rebuild. One such advocate was Colonel Charles Gunter who wrote a letter to a newspaper saying, “Move here (Brazil) and buy land. We have here a beautiful place for our village, in the center of rich land, and on a grand river.”


Historians scoured letters, journals, and property deeds to decide what the main motivation was for these Southerners to make such a drastic move as to uproot their lives and take them to countries like Brazil. Luciana Brito, a historian at the Federal University of Recôncavo da Bahia told the Washington Post: “They came to continue having slaves. They associated the existence of slavery in Brazil with the maintenance of a system of racial subservience.” Historians such as Brito found that over three-fourths of the families that petitioned Brazil for immigration were slave holders prior to the emancipation. And they purchased slaves as soon as they arrived in Brazil.


Whatever their motivation for doing so, somewhere between ten and twenty thousand people immigrated from southern states to Brazil. The main colony that was formed there became known as the town of Americana, and we will go into more detail on that colony and the family that led them there next month. So be sure to come back on April 2nd to check out that post.


See you next month!

*****

Two-time winner of the Christian Indie Award for historical fiction, Amber Lemus inspires hearts through enthralling tales She has a passion for travel, history, books and her Savior. This combination results in what her readers call "historical fiction at its finest".

She lives near the Ozarks in her "casita" with her prince charming. Between enjoying life as a boy mom, and spinning stories out of soap bubbles, Amber loves to connect with readers and hang out on Goodreads with other bookish peoples.

Amber is a proud member of the American Christian Fiction Writers Association. Visit her online at http://www.amberlemus.com/ and download a FREE story by subscribing to her Newsletter!

Reunifying the Country At Christmas

By Jennifer Uhlarik

 

Merry Christmas to all our HHH Readers! Speaking for all the bloggers at Heroes, Heroines, and History, we hope your 2023 has been a good year, and we wish you a wonderful 2024!

 

Here’s an interesting little historical fact that happened on one Christmas day in American history…

 

Pres. Abe Lincoln

Even before the American Civil War’s end, those in the federal government had debated how to go about healing the country. How should the Confederate States be readmitted and reintegrated into the Union? President Lincoln was of the mind to extend an olive branch to Southerners by being lenient to the southern states. During an address to Congress in December 1863, Lincoln outlined his plan, which included a pardon for former Confederates once they pledged their oath of allegiance to the Union. They would not be able to retain ownership of their former slaves, nor would confiscated property be returned when that property involved a third party. In addition, Lincoln planned to deny officeholders in the Confederate government or any person who mistreated prisoners a pardon.

 

Congress felt Lincoln’s plan was far too lenient. Instead, they proposed the Wade-Davis Bill, which required half of each Confederate state’s voters to swear allegiance to the United States and that they had not supported the Confederacy. Despite Congress passing the bill, Lincoln chose to veto the harsh legislation.

 

Robert E. Lee's "General Order No. 9",
written at his surrender.

On April 9, 1865, when Robert E. Lee surrendered at Appomattox Courthouse, the Confederates were given parole and were granted permission to return to their homes, so long as they agreed to abide by whatever laws were in force where they resided. But the question remained—how could the Union be restored? Unfortunately, Lincoln never got the chance to bring the answer to this pressing question. Days later, on April 14, 1865, he was assassinated in Ford’s Theater, and in the wake of his death, Andrew Johnson was sworn in as President.

 

Andrew Johnson became
president after Lincoln's assassination.

Out of the blue in the fall of 1865, President Johnson declared that national unity had been restored and slavery had been ended, so the Reconstruction Era was over. Only the various factions in Congress didn’t agree. Some wanted to focus on repairing damage from the death and destruction caused by the war. Others wanted to bring the newly freed blacks into full freedom, including citizenship, voting rights, and more. And still others wanted to keep the balance of power in the white man’s favor with the freed slaves having no new benefits to their freedom. Within Congress and across the country, these factions warred. Inside the House and Senate, certain factions gained enough votes to override Johnson’s veto power and began enacting harsher restrictions in the former Confederate states. They replaced civilian governments in those states with leadership by the U.S. Army, and roughly a decade of harsh treatment and turmoil ensued as the country was rebuilt. During this time, Johnson’s continued conflicts with Congress resulted in him becoming the first U.S. President to be impeached in 1868, though he was not removed from office in that process.

 

Despite the infighting in Congress and elsewhere, Johnson (a Southerner born in North Carolina and living much of his life in Tennessee), did what he could to restore the South before his presidential term was up. Though his hands were largely tied by a veto-proof majority in Congress, as one of his last acts before his presidential term ended, on December 25, 1868, President Johnson offered a full pardon to all former Confederate soldiers and other Confederate officeholders, desiring that the act “secure permanent peace, order, and prosperity throughout the land, and to renew and fully restore confidence and fraternal feeling among the whole people.” 

President Johnson's proclamation granting 
pardons to all Confederates on Dec 25, 1868.

Whether you agree with President Johnson’s stances in history or not, it sounds like in this instance of offering sweeping pardons to Confederates, he displayed the true spirit of Christmas as he attempted to bring good will to all and to unify a broken and hurting nation.

 

Merry Christmas, everyone, and Happy New Year!

Award-winning, best-selling novelist Jennifer Uhlarik has loved the western genre since she read her first Louis L’Amour novel. She penned her first western while earning a writing degree from University of Tampa. Jennifer lives near Tampa with her husband, son, and furbabies. www.jenniferuhlarik.com

 

AVAILABLE NOW

 

Love’s Fortress by Jennifer Uhlarik

 

A Friendship From the Past Brings Closure to Dani’s Fractured Family

 

When Dani Sango’s art forger father passes away, Dani inherits his home. There, she finds a book of Native American drawings, which leads her to seek museum curator Brad Osgood’s help to decipher the ledger art. Why would her father have this book? Is it another forgery?

 

Brad Osgood longs to provide his four-year-old niece, Brynn, the safe home she desperately deserves. The last thing he needs is more drama, especially from a forger’s daughter. But when the two meet “accidentally” at St. Augustine’s 350-year-old Spanish fort, he can’t refuse the intriguing woman.

 

Broken Bow is among seventy-three Plains Indians transported to Florida in 1875 for incarceration at ancient Fort Marion. Sally Jo Harris and Luke Worthing dream of serving on a foreign mission field, but when the Indians reach St. Augustine, God changes their plans. However, when Sally Jo’s friendship with Broken Bow leads to false accusations, it could cost them their lives.

 

Can Dani discover how Broken Bow and Sally Jo’s story ends and how it impacted her father’s life?

 

 

Texas Treasury Robbery in 1865

Robbery--And a Texas Giveaway

by Susan Page Davis

Immediately after the Civil War, Texas was in chaos. This was at least partly due to the hasty disbanding of the Confederate army at the end of the war. There were 60,000 troops in Texas in the spring of 1865. Morale was horrible. Many Confederate soldiers deserted and plundered. Soldiers pillaged the quartermaster’s stores in Galveston in late May and plundered a train. A mob demanded that a government warehouse be opened to them, and a blockade-running ship was overrun by civilians. Troops sent to calm the mob joined in the plunder. Other episodes of rioting and stealing exploded across Texas.

When word reached Austin that the Confederate forces had surrendered to Grant, the Texas legislature couldn’t raise enough members to repeal the secession ordinance. Rather than stay and face the uncertainty of their status under the Reconstruction government, Governor Pendleton Murrah and several other Confederate officials fled into Mexico. Most other state officials were removed from office. Union occupation troops were on the way, and Texas temporarily was denied readmission to the Union.

During this time of disorganization and fear, violence continued. Mobs and bands of outlaws terrorized towns. In the capital, Austin, citizens got together in an attempt to protect the people and their property.

Captain George R. Freeman, a Confederate veteran, organized a small company of volunteers in May, 1865, to protect the state capital until the Union army could get there.  A mob had taken control of the streets, plundering stores and causing riots and general havoc.

Freeman’s volunteers restored a measure of peace, and they then disbanded, agreeing to gather again if needed. A church bell would sound the alarm if necessary.

On the night of June 11, Freeman was informed that a gang planned to rob the state treasury. The bell tolled, and about twenty of the volunteers gathered at the Christian Church on the south end of Congress Avenue. Some of them came directly from church services.

By the time the volunteers arrived at the treasury building, the estimated fifty robbers of the gang were already inside, breaking into the safes. A brief gun battle broke out. One of the robbers was gravely wounded. Freeman was shot in the arm.

The thieves got away with more than $17,000 in specie, that is, in gold and silver coins. That’s a lot of weight to carry! A later audit report stated that a total of $27,525 in specie had been located in the treasury at the time of the robbery, as well as $800 in Louisiana bank bills. Several million dollars of U.S. bonds and other securities were also in the vault, but the robbers didn’t take them. One package of bond coupons was recovered from the floor after apparently being dropped by a fleeing member of the gang.

Before he died, the wounded robber told the outnumbered volunteers that the leader of the gang was “Captain Rapp,” but this man was never caught. No other members of the gang were ever captured, and the loot was not recovered, though some money was found outside, between the treasury building and Mount Bonnell.

In 1861, the Texas legislature created the Frontier Regiment to guard frontier settlements. They occupied several abandoned federal posts and established a line of 16 camps through the center of the state. Map courtesy Texas Parks and Wildlife Department.

Captain Freeman and his company of volunteers were later recognized by the state for their service, but the resolution providing a reward for them never passed the legislature.

In 2009, Freeman was honored by a historical marker placed at his former home in Hamilton, where he later practiced law. He is credited with interrupting the robbery and preventing the bankruptcy of Texas. He had served prior to this incident as a Confederate officer, as captain of Company D, Twenty-third Texas Cavalry.

Federal troops arrived in Texas on June 19, 1865, and it took a while to restore order.
Ex-Confederates were granted amnesty if they promised to support the Union in the future, but it wasn’t until March 30, 1870 that Texas’s representatives were once again allowed to take their seats in Congress.


    
If you would like to enter the drawing for a copy of one of my Texas books, leave a comment below. The winner can choose either Captive Trail or Cowgirl Trail.

Susan Page Davis is the author of more than fifty published novels. A history major, she’s always interested in the unusual happenings of the past. She’s a two-time winner of the Inspirational Readers’ Choice Award, and also a winner of the Carol Award and the Will Rogers Medallion, and a finalist in the WILLA Awards and the More Than Magic Contest. Visit her website at: www.susanpagedavis.com .

What would make you abandon the country of your birth?

Winner of the Drawing for a free copy of Forsaken Dreams is Joy Isley!! Congratulations,Joy! 

 

Those of us who love to learn about history, often find the Civil War in America fascinating. Not because of the cruelty and death, but because a nation could be so torn apart on the issues of slavery and economics that they saw the need to split into two nations and fight brother against brother!  Even more remarkable is that, despite the animosity and hatred,  history proves that the two halves became a whole again. Surely the hand of God played a huge role in that.

But did you know that a great many Southerners fled the South after the war? Frustrated and disillusioned, they abandoned the country of their birth and took off for greener shores.  Think about it, what would make a person do that? What would make you do that? Let’s take a peek at the reasons

The post-Civil War South was unrecognizable.

J.S. Pike from South Carolina comments

“The banks were ruined, railroads destroyed. Their few manufactories were desolate, their vessels swept from the seas and rivers their live-stock was consumed. Notes, bonds, mortgages, all the money in circulation, debts, become alike worthless. The communities were without clothes and without food.  Lawlessness, poverty fear, hunger violence ruin and social disorder were to mark the south for many years. Northern merchants and speculators moved into the Southern states after the war, taking away economic opportunities from Southerners. The southern landscape was in shambles. . .never was there greater nakedness and desolation in a civilized community.”

In addition, almost every family mourned the loss at least one relative in the war. Then to make matters worse, Congress declared 150,000 leading Southern citizens guilty of treason without a trial and denied them rights of citizenship. 

From the diary of confederate officer Douglas French Forrest: “the whole country for miles around was filled with predatory bands, utterly irresponsible, recognizing no rights of property, utterly demoralized”

Many Southerners felt that had no choice but to leave. So they did!!

Three million people migrated from the former Confederate States in the decades following the Civil War. Most moved to sparsely settled lands in western North America, to the larger cities of the north, to Canada, and to Mexico. But some went to Brazil’s golden shores!! We don’t know how many actually went to Brazil because few had passports and they just boarded ships and went down.  However a study of available figures, newspaper reports and data gathered from descendants makes it safe to estimate that at least 20,000 Southerners came to Brazil Their descendants now number over 100,000  and are spread over the country.

Most of these “Confederados”, as they came to be called, were professional farmers and planters. However, others included generals, admirals, governors, senators as well as mechanics, machinists, preachers, teachers, and even a few freed slaves.

In 1869 George Washington Keyes, formerly of Montgomery, Alabama, from his plantation in Brazil, wrote to a friend back in America “I left the United States because of anarchy which I expected to prevail, poverty that was already at our doors, and the demoralization which I thought and still believe will surely cover the land.: 

Fifty years after the war Dr. Robert Norris, another immigrant to Brazil replied to an American visitor as to why he never returned to the U.S. “You folks made our lives so impossible in the United States that we had to leave. We were welcome here in Brazil. This is our country now and here we are going to stay. “

In fact, you may find it interesting that a few miles outside the Brazilian town of Santa Barbara, at least four times a year, a group of people gather at a small chapel and cemetery in the middle of sugarcane fields. What’s so weird about that? They are all dressed in costumes of 19^th century America, sing old Protestant hymns and listen to a sermon. Afterward, they share a meal of fried chicken and biscuits and gravy and dance to the tune of Dixie. If you look real close, among the Brazilian features, you may find some blue eyes here, some red hair and freckles there and you may even hear English spoken instead of Portuguese.

These are the descendants of the Confederados who fled to Brazil after the Civil War.

And this is the history upon which my new series, Escape to Paradise is based.

Disclaimer: I am neither in favor of the North or the South. I abhor war and slavery and am proud of my country for finally freeing the slaves. Death and atrocities occurred on both sides of this war. However, my series is told from a Southern perspective. 

Don’t miss book 1 in my Escape to Paradise series, Forsaken Dreams!!

Available online at Amazon,  Barnes and Noble, CBD.com

 

Don’t forget to leave a comment to be in our daily giveaways!

Grand Prize – Kindle, drawn on April 1^st

2nd Place Prize - $25 Amazon gift card

For each day you comment on CFHS, you’ll receive one entry in the Kindle and one in the $25 Amazon gift card giveaway. Comment on every post in the month of March and earn 31 entries!