Confederate Festival in Brazilian town where US exiles from the South founded a slave-owning colony
Confederate Festival in Brazilian town where US exiles from the South founded a slave-owning colony after the Civil War faces ban, report says
Joshua Zitser 19 hours ago
People stand in traditional outfits between dances at the annual Festa Confederada, or Confederate Festival, on April 24, 2016. Mario Tama/Getty Images
A new municipal law could mark the end of an annual celebration of the Confederacy in rural Sao Paulo, Brazil, according to The Christian Science Monitor.
Festa Confederada, or Confederate Festival, has been taking place in Santa Bárbara d'Oeste for the past four decades, The Christian Science Monitor reported.
Thousands of defeated Confederates went into exile in Brazil, unwilling to abide by the Union's victory and consequent emancipation of enslaved Black people, and set up a colony nearby Santa Bárbara d'Oeste.
They bought hundreds of slaves who they forced to labor for them on cotton fields until 1888 when Brazil became the last nation in the Americas to ban slavery.
More:
https://www.businessinsider.com/photos-confederate-festival-at-brazils-civil-war-colony-faces-ban-2022-8
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New law could mark end of American Confederacy – in Brazil
August 16, 2022
By Sage Behr Contributor
Zach Ben-Amots Contributor
SANTA BÁRBARA D’OESTE, BRAZIL
The Cemitério do Campo is unlike any other cemetery in Brazil. Located at the end of a dirt road in rural São Paulo state, it’s the site of an estimated 500 graves, a small ecumenical chapel – and one of the world’s largest Confederate flags.
Settled by Confederates fleeing their loss in the U.S. Civil War more than 150 years ago, it’s been host to the Festa Confederada, or Confederate Festival, for the past four decades. Thousands travel from across Brazil to celebrate the legacy of the Confederate States of America, complete with flags and a country music soundtrack. Attendees use “Confederate dollars” to buy chicken and biscuits, while watching reenactments from the antebellum South.
But a new municipal law could mean the end of the annual celebration and any other public event commemorating the Confederacy. The ordinance bans the use of racist symbols at public festivals, and the Confederate flag and this festival in Santa Bárbara d’Oeste are specifically named in the justification for the law, which passed last month with near-unanimous support.
The conflict here mirrors the ongoing debate over Confederate symbols and monuments in the United States, despite taking place thousands of miles south of the Mason-Dixon Line. For residents, however, it’s a hyperlocal dispute about representation and balancing the legacy of slavery in Brazil with the unusual story of American immigrants who settled in this small town a century and a half ago.
More:
https://www.csmonitor.com/World/Americas/2022/0816/New-law-could-mark-end-of-American-Confederacy-in-Brazil
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Older article from the Washington Post:
They lost the Civil War and fled to Brazil. Their descendants refuse to take down the Confederate flag.
Folk dancers gather before performing at the 2018 Confederate Festival in Santa Bárbara d’Oeste, Brazil. Each of their dresses is embroidered with the name of a state in the U.S. Confederacy. (Giovana Schluter Nunes)
By Terrence McCoy
July 11, 2020 at 4:11 p.m. EDT
RIO DE JANEIRO — To Marina Lee Colbachini, it was a family tradition. Each spring, she would join the throngs who descended on a nondescript city in southern Brazil, don a 19th-century hoop skirt and square dance to country music.
The theme of the annual festival: the Confederate States of America.
It’s one of history’s lesser-known episodes. After the Civil War, thousands of defeated Southerners came to Brazil to self-exile in a country that still practiced slavery. For decades, their descendants have thrown a massive party that now attracts thousands of people to the twin cities of Americana and Santa Bárbara d’Oeste to celebrate all things Dixie. The Confederate flag? Everywhere.
On flagpoles and knickknacks. Emblazoned on the dance floor. Clutched by men clad in Confederate battle gray. Decorating the grounds of the cemetery that holds the remains of veterans of the rebel army — the immigrants known here as the confederados.
In a country that has long been more preoccupied with class divisions than racism, the Confederate symbols, stripped of their American context, never registered much notice. But now, as the racial reckoning in the United States following the killing of George Floyd inspires a similar reexamination of values in Brazil, that has begun to change.
Confederate flags adorn the grave of a U.S. settler in the American Cemetery in Santa Bárbara d’Oeste during the 2016 Confederate Festival. (Mario Tama/Getty Images)
More:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/the_americas/brazil-confederate-flag-civil-war-americana-santa-barbara/2020/07/11/1e8a7c84-bec4-11ea-b4f6-cb39cd8940fb_story.html
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