Emblem of the Municipal Prefecture of Americana,
State of São Paulo, Federal Republic of Brazil
from 3 November 1975 to 17 April 1998.
[by Municipal Public Law 1.408 of 3 November 1975: Ralph Biasi, Municipal Prefect]
At the end of the Civil War, thousands of people in south Louisana were left destitute. Their farms were in ruins, cattle run-off and stolen, buildings destroyed, and there was no such thing as money to buy seed or fix things-up.
Chafing under Reconstruction politics and with nothing to hold them to the land, many Southerners decided that they would move even farther south--to Brazil, to take up an offer extended by that country's Emperor Dom Pedro II.
He sent recruiters into Louisiana, Alabama, Georgia, South Carolina and Texas, to look for people willing to move to Brazil to raise cotton--taking advantage of thier misfortune, thier farming expertise, and a market hungry for cotton after the destruction of the crop in the southern United States by the raiding Union forces.
A family could sail to Brazil for only $30 and buy good farmland there for 22 cents an acre--all of it on credit, not due until four years later.
Thousands of people took up the offer, including a good sized contingent from St. Landry Parish. My ancestor (great-great grandfather) Francois Joseph Vautrot was among them! They settled primarily near the souther Atlantic coast in places that they named Americana and New Texas, or in already settled places such as Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro.
When they go to Brazil, they were met by bands playing "Dixie" and crowds cheering a welcome to the arriving Confederados.
Some died searching for better fortune in Brazil and many went back to America. But a small group overcame the perils of life in what was to them a strange, poor, tropical land and have become a small but important piece of its history.
"They wanted a new country, a new place to live." "Everybody's dream is to live in the United States. They wanted to leave."
Indeed, the Confederados' exodus was one of the very few organized emigrations out of the United States, a country better known for receiving immigrants than producing them.
Cyrus Dawsey, a professor of geography at Auburn University in Alabama who coauthored the book "The Confederados," estimates that between 5,000 and 7,000 southerners made their way to Brazil. About half went back.
Most of them were ordinary farmers or craftsmen worried about their prospects in the economic turmoil of the post-war South. Too poor to afford slaves in the United States, only a few bought them when they arrived in Brazil.
"There was a little bit of slave ownership in Brazil but it wasn't very important," Dawsey said. "That's not to say they were abolitionists, but [slavery] just wasn't important to them."
Brazil did not abolish slavery until 1888, 23 years after the United States.
Eventually most of the immigrants headed to the interior of Sao Paulo state near a town later named after them: Americana. The cemetery is located outside a neighboring city, Santa Barbara do Oeste, about two hours' drive northwest of Sao Paulo and where many of their descendants live.
Dawsey believes the Confederados' geographical isolation in Brazil and their Protestantism in a mostly Roman Catholic country may have initially helped them preserve more of their culture than other immigrant groups.
The land was indeed as rich as had been promised. One Confederado wrote to The Mobile Register, "I have sugar cane, cotton, pumpkins, squash, five kinds of sweet potatoes, Irish potatoes, corn field peas, snapbeans, butter beans, ochre, tomatoes and a fine chance at tobacco. I have a great variety of fruits on my place. I have made enough to live well on."
But not everone did as well. For example, Francois Vautrot, one of those who left St. Landry in 1867 with his wife and one of his sons to try his hand way down south, was back in Louisiana by 1870--he returned back to America on the Brazillian ship Quinnebog on July 11, 1870.
Many of those descendants that still reside there are fourth-or fifth-generation Confederados, and they say they are just like anybody else in Brazil. "We're perfectly integrated," said Allison Jones, the Fraternity's official spokesman.
Indeed, just about everyone savoring fried chicken was speaking Portuguese and some don't speak English. Like Padoveze, whose Confederate ancestor married a black Brazilian slave, many have also lost their American last names and pale Anglo-Saxon complexion.
But then again, few people in Brazil fly the U.S., Brazilian and Confederate flags side by side at mealtime. In the United States, the flying of the Confederate "Stars and Bars" flag has sparked numerous controversies as a symbol of the racial hatred institutionalized in the the Confederate South. But Cullen Pyles, the Fraternity's treasurer, said the Confederate flag has a different meaning for the group.
"She is a reminder of our ancestry," she says. "It doesn't represent racism or any of that to us."
My father, H.G. Vautrot, Jr., is Francois Vautrot's great grandson. He wrote down and told me that "Francois Vautrot was a returning Confederate veteran. He had been burned-out by Yankee invaders near Leonville, LA (Francois' first home). Francois' Bayou Teche River front home and farm were pillaged and burned by Union troops in 1863 under General Nathaniel Banks (Union Army). After he returned from the war in 1865, he decided to move westward to the prairie land away from the Teche and River system that had been used by the hated Yankee invaders. Also, rumor had it that the soil in what is now North Acadia Parish was very rich. Rice was not yet the top crop of Acadia Parish: cotton was still 'king.'"
My dad goes on to tell me that "Francois Vautrot was what was called an 'Un-Reconstructed Rebel,' which means that he never took the oath to the Union after the War of Secession. He never regretted not taking the oath because he and most ex-rebels had been disenfranchised until the Amnesty Act of 1872."
"Francois also demonstrated how much he despised the Union by visiting the famous Confederate colony in Brazil. He had considered settling in Brazil with hundreds of other ex-Confederate military families. But after his 'tour,' he decided to return to Louisiana in 1871. He did not want to clear farm land from the jungle. He had indured many hardships and privations during the Civil War already. But while living in Brazil, he was served a dish of monkey meat...that was the last Brazilian meal he had, and it convinced him to return home to Louisiana!"
Henry Gabriel Vautrot, Jr.
Great Grandson of Francois Joseph Vautrot
The second, original home of Francois Vautrot that he constructed after The Civil War (1865) is still standing! I have seen it and walked around inside of it; it is very large and on a very nice piece of property. It has lasted nearly 150 years because it is constructed from pure Cypress wood! There is terrific squirrel hunting on the property, as there is a beautful Pecan Tree orchard behind it.
Its address is off of Prudhomme Road, Acadia Parish:
Louisiana Highway 358 / "Brigman Highway" on the right side of the road
Eunice, LA 70535
North Acadia Parish, near Bayou Mallet
Thank you, that was an amazing story about Southern cultural heritage. I was aware of some of this, but your article was wonderfully detailed.
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