Monday, it was off on another adventure. Eric went to MBA School at BYU with a man named Trejano Lima. Trejano was recruited by Caterpillar to work for them upon graduation. He spent a year in Peoria, Illinois before returning home to Brazil. Caterpillar has a manufacturing facility about 1 and ½ hours outside of Sao Paulo. Trejano works in the purchasing Department. Eric had arranged for a plant tour. Unfortunately it wasn’t a kid friend operation, so Gretchen and the girls stayed at Trejano’s house with Trejano’s wife and children while Eric and I got a plant tour. It was great. We watched D6 and D8 Bulldozer go down the production line and Trejano schooled us on how Brazil treats domestic producers. They get a break on taxes. We also had a nice lunch at the employee’s dining room. A great number of Trejano’s colleagues spoke excellent English as they communicate with Peoria on different issues.
After the tour we picked up the Girls and drove off to Americana, Brazil. Here’s the quick story of how Americana got its name. There’s also a huge statue of Liberty replica on the road outside of town. It’s about 80 ft. tall.
At the end of the Civil War (the US Civil War) the emperor of Brazil send agents to the confederate states to recruit disenfranchised southern Farmers to come to Brazil. Brazil was sorely in need of improved farming practices and they had land. Over 400 confederate families took Brazil up on the offer. I had heard of this story from a friend of mine who grew up in Rio. We found some signs that read,”Estrada dos Confederados”. Google translate confirms that to be “Road of the Confederates”. We drove two miles down at best described a dirt road. It had rained and there were potholes and debris on the road. Take this to mean it wasn’t very heavily traveled.
We found a fenced in compound that we viewed through a chain link fence. We could see a few building, what I’d describe as a picnic shelter and head stones. About then a car comes driving down the road and the care taker arrives. There was a small house on one side of the compound.
Eric acting as interrupter got the car taker to open the gate and he allowed us to look around. We explained we were Americans and had heard some of the history of the confederate families that immigrated to Brazil. There was a stars and bars monument that had the names of some of the families and in front of the picnic shelter there was a concrete pad painted with the confederate flag. I guess Brazil doesn’t subscribe to political correctness. We wandered over to the cemetery and looked at the grave stones. All contained history. One stated … a Confederate Soldier born 1820 Mississippi, died Sao Paulo State Brazil 1895.
I understand that every April the local families that are descendants of these families gather and hold a festival. I’ll try to find the youtube.com link to a short video of the April celebration.
http://youtu.be/9l5ILYQAC1I
I hope you find it as fascinating as I did. We hear so much about immigration to the USA we never hear about people leaving. Brazil is even a more diverse country that the United States. Although slavery was outlawed in 1860 the slaves we’re freed until 1888. In researching this aspect of Brazil I came upon the fact that only the Unites States had a civil war over the issue of slavery. Every other county that had slaves simply negotiated for their freedom by paying off the owners. Slaves first came to Brazil with the early Portuguese settlers and continued as tremendous manpower was required to “tame” the land. It’s estimated that 4 million slaves came to Brazil or 40% of the slaves that came to the Americas. Later I’ll cover Paraty an old colonial town dating to the 1500’s . It a seaport town where slaves arrived in Brazil.
We then drove back to Sao Paulo.
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