Some local trouble. Through a mutual acquaintance discovered that there were virginians who were traveling to brazil. In fact, this was not a virginia phenomenon. It was something that was happening throughout the south. The reason for it was that, at least in the case of brazil, it has been advertised in newspapers in places like new orleans, atlanta, charleston all over, by brazilian officials. The idea was that brazil, being an enormous country, it is still an enormous country, needed further development of its interior. Its government officials thought, what better immigrants to have then these confederates who have advanced agricultural knowledge compared to a lot of other perspective immigrants. Obviously, are not happy with how things are going at home. So they essentially were given land grants to come to brazil. So that is the reasoning behind it. Just to bring home berrtts point, i would like to read something briefly called its from the virginia magazine of history and biography. Alternatives to appomattox is the title. Edited by frank j. Merley. I want to read the opening paragraph. It really brings home how people were feeling and how people responded to these various surrenders and the prospect of life following the end of the confederacy. The title of the essay is alternatives to appomattox. I am sure many of them wished there had been an alternative. Some weeks after general robert e lee surrendered at mathematics courthouse in april 1865, appomattox courthouse in april 1865 a disgruntled leader put a rifle in his mouth. He chose not to live in the world the war had made. Many confederates shared the grim revulsion few emulated his method of escape. Most came to terms as best they could with the new order ushered in by the war and attempted to revive a broad and to establish a southern presence in many parts of the world. Many of these exiles remained romantic rebels, haunted strangers in strange lands many others talented, dedicated, determined made contributions to their adopted countrys. Coincidentally deprived of their homeland of one of its most precious resources. Still others dreamed dreams and schemed to escape the yoke of yankee domination. That line about depriving the south of resources, one other fact. People leaving are not leaving general robert e lee, when asked about the confederado question and the immigration, he wasnt this a firstly against that he was vociferously against that. This was symbolized when he assumed the president ship at Washington College which later became washington and lee university. He thought it was important particularly for young men to remain in the south and help rebuild the country. He was against this kind of thing. For others, for various reasons the uncertainty of the postwar south, it was something that seemed not only preferable but in some cases necessary. Now, id like to read just a basic definition of what a confederado is. What essentially this constituted. Its kind of a confusing term. On the one hand you have former southerner,d like to confederate. Youve got brazilian colonist. What really is the crux of a confederado . What is their story . This is a working definition that i used based on primary sources when i was doing research for my book. A confederado immigrant focuses on essentially a person who left north america between 1865 in 1870 and settled in such areas as sao paulo, santarem, Rio De Janeiro and parana. Only the settlements confederate. In Santa Barbara and americana were successful. It is estimated that more than 50 of those who traveled eventually return to the u. S. Due to various unanticipated hardships. Those who chose to remain tended to congregate around colonel William Norris settlement in the area of Santa Barbara and americana. First settled in 1865, the americans in this area it retained their sense of confederate identity. That is even true today. In a country of immigrant groups such as brazil, this people not only remember the confederate ancestors, but embrace heritage as a way of distinguishing themselves from other brazilian groups. That is one thing to keep in mind as well. This is not an issue that is limited to the conclusion of the civil war and the ensuing two or three decades following. It is an ongoing narrative. Every year in Santa Barbara there is a celebration in which confederados come together and celebrate their heritage. They play dixie but they sing it in portuguese. If you look at the people who are participating, a large portion of them are people of color. But they are wearing uniforms and the ladies are wearing southern bell attire. So its very surreal. And theres the confederate battle flag all over the place. Its a surreal kind of thing to witness in another country. These people celebrating their Confederate Heritage yet at the same time, having been wholly integrated into brazilian society. Ethnically and liquid linguistically, and economically. Yet it is important that they had this in their past. A former first lady, of president and georgia governor jimmy carter claims confederado heritage. There was a media blitz when they traveled to this festival in the late 1970s. Her family was among one of the families that returned. They did not stay. It did result in some dialogue and sound Exchange Programs between young people, brazilian confederados coming to spend time in the south and in georgia , contemporary georgians journeying to Santa Barbara to spend time among these confederados. I think that is very interesting as well. So, what was it like to be a confederado . The quote that i read mentioned the hardship and various other factors that came with the experience. It is true that slavery still existed in brazil. Brazil was the last country to abolish slavery in the 1880s. However, for any southerner hoping to acquire slaves, they would find that they could not afford them for they were much more expensive in brazil. Also slavery, as an Economic Institution and social institution, was on the way out. As opposed to the United States, it was abolished eventually through peaceful means, within brazil. There were actually military elements that contributed to its abolishment, most notably the war of the triple alliance which involved paraguay, brazil and argentina. If a slave were to enlist in the Brazilian Army for that war, he was automatically guaranteed his freedom once he had served his time as a soldier. Those factors were gradually leading to the abolishment of slavery in brazil. And of course, disenfranchised southerners had not the means to assist them with labor and developing these land grants they had received from the presiding government. So, what did they do . They had to work really hard, really hard. I would compare it in American History to some of the grisly details of the jamestown settlement in its infancy. There was not cannibalism as there was at jamestown. There were people who were literally starving at times as they tried to develop crops the bull tongue plow, for example did not exist in brazil. They were trying to make their own. Trying to clear fields for crops and so forth. A lot of the time their land grants were in very remote places. Even if you successfully grew something it was very difficult to get it to a place where he could be taken by rail to Rio De Janeiro to be in a market, the roads were really bad. They are still really bad in the world brazil. A lot of the time their land grants were in very remote the next thing im going to do is read a brief description from a typical confederado. This is a person who visited a confederate who visited a confederado. He was a Civil War Veteran from tennessee. These were the living circumstances of this veteran in brazil, trying to make a go of it as a farmer. The farmers home was in a large clearing in the forest. At the base of a plateau that is some hundred feet above the river. All around, there were splendid masses of green trees and lime trees and great banana plants and coffee bushes in the woods. Beyond those, untouched forest with the giant brazilian nut tree towering over it. The farmer says with all the beauty of this site, it evidently has a hard time of it. I still have a hard time of it i am careworn and a little discouraged. The land is excellent but the stream is too small to give me good waterpower. Without that, i cannot manage a large cane plantation. The man went on to complain that how the prices he received for his produce were not very good. The santarem traders take advantage of his helplessness, he cannot speak portuguese. It would be like an immigrant in this country. It is a huge disadvantage. All the americans are cultivating, who are cultivating sugarcane the juice is distilled into round which is sold at santarem. Coffee or coconut might pay better but colonists came without money theres the disenfranchisement. They could not wait for slow going crops. The farmer tells me how he and his family were housed with the others in a great thatched building. The colonists were supported until they could locate plantations and get crops. They had to struggle with utter poverty, work without tools, live as best they could until fields were established. He had saved a little money and bought this ground of an old indian woman, it was a small clearing with a dozen trees. The family lived in a shed until they could delay thatched house. the farmer had to bring provisions from santarem on his back. It was a long time before he could cut a road and longer before he had horses. He had to grind cane with a wooden mill until he could procure an iron one from the u. S. He had to get things on credit and pay a premium. Horses were obtained at a sacrifice. He had been his own carpenter, everything. It was a long time before he could hire a single indian to work with. After seven years of struggle, he finds his elf with what question he finds himself with what . A plantation he could not sell for one fourth of its real value because there are no buyers. A burden of debt that it will take him a long time to pay. Himself, with a broken down body and discouraged heart. There you go. Maybe things are not so bad in the United States after all. They were getting letters, it is not like they were living in a vacuum. They were getting letters informing the confederados of how things were preceding. Reconstruction, despite its rough spots and problems, was not as bad as they had imagined, remember from the previous talk the sense of uncertainty and fear. So, this was the situation. For some families, they could live that colonial lifestyle in it was preferable to returning to the south it was just too painful for them to return. 50 chose to return because of scenarios like the one i just shared with you. It was just too difficult to make a living in brazil. At that, i asked patrick about this and he thought it was ok, considering the topic is so unexamined and many of you might have questions about it. Opening the floor a little earlier and then may be returning to some more reading later. Please if you have any questions, come up to the microphone at this time. Thank you, casey, for enlightening us. I see people with questions but i am going to preempt them and ask the first question. Did you in your life make a pilgrimage to brazil . While researching your book. Second question, is there an account of the number of confederados in brazil today . Professor clabough the answer to the first question is yes. I was fortunate to get a Research Travel grant from the brazilian government to spend a couple weeks down there. I was not able to go to Santa Barbara and see the festival firsthand. There is video footage of it which i have seen, but i was more interested in tracing the ancestors footsteps. He, as well as most of the confederados had come into port at Rio De Janeiro. The Government House them for a while, as it had the tennessee gentlemen. In the ancestors case, he had gone to the state essentially would be comparative to West Virginia of brazil. So very rugged very poor, very rundown. Its called Espirito Santo and its main city is linhardees. I it was not a glamour trip. I spent a lot of time writing around on back roads. I got some fascinating pictures of anacondas. One of them ended up on the back of the book. They were sunning themselves. With regard to the other question, historians still disagree about how many confederados and their families, how many southerners and their families went to brazil and other countries. It kind of goes back to ron wilsons question to the last speaker about paroles or the lack thereof. To some extent, to the conclusion of many modern wars records are sketchy. There are diasporas of people huge movements of people going every which way. Given that chaotic element it is hard to put a number on how many southerners actually migrated. Today it is estimated, brazil has a Large Population similar to that of the u. S. So it is less than 1 , perhaps. 5 of the entire population, a small minority. Is this microphone on . My name is james, i am from williamsburg. Did any of the former slaves come with their former owners to brazil . That is the first part. I got interested in this subject years ago. I understand that brazil has nothing anywhere with the problem of Race Relations like the u. S. Has. Can you comment on those two questions . Thank you. Professor clabough sure. The first question, yes. In some cases, former slaves did a Company Former slaves did a company families to brazil. That immediately became a thorny issue given that they had technically, in terms of, as far as the u. S. Government was concerned, been freed in north america. And then arriving in brazil, there was no real means to reenslave them that the government was willing to get involved with. So, yes, in some cases africanamericans did travel with the families that formerly had owned them to brazil. But they were not slaves. They essentially just worked with the family or eventually went their own way. As opposed to the second question, brazil most definitely had, and to this day is much more open and accommodating in terms of its various ethnicities. That has to do with the development of the country itself. You had portuguese, you had a very strong indigenous presence and then the people, the colonists that had initially developed brazil were from all over europe, even into north africa. You had italian, germans, even turkish immigrants. Then you throw in the Indigenous Peoples of brazil and africanamericans brought in for slave labor and you have got an ethnic pool that is more diverse than the u. S. And more used to working together. They also, they were also bonded and still are to an extent by common religion. The Catholic Church had a very strong presence there. Hi, i am george. I do not have a question but a quick story. A friend of mine who is a World Bank Representative in brazil we vacationed last summer together. She told us a story about sitting next to a Supreme Court justice, it might have been the chief justice and brazil a blond haired and blueeyed woman who was perfectly portuguese in her language. But reminded my friend of having a southern type of hospitality and heirs about her. As they got talking, it turns out that this woman was a confederado descendent. A woman who has ascended to the top of the judicial food chain in brazil but retains her southern culture. I thought that was pretty fascinating. Professor clabough that is interesting. Brazil is different from other south american countries in a number of respects. It is a strong economic power, it is a very large country now. You go there and i have been in other places in central america, south america, where it is kind of strange to see someone with blonde hair and blue eyes. It is really not that strange in brazil and argentina as well. Just because there is a long tradition of Northern European immigration to those areas. Thank you for that story. I am william, former captain at Hampden Sydney college and a farmville resident. Ive heard you speak before and i want to make a comment about a local confederado theme here. I am a retired southern presbyterian minister. In 1867, the southern presbyterian denomination established its Foreign Mission field in brazil. Now, this was not, as it turned out, an evangelical approach to the native population or to protestants whistling to proselytize from the roman Catholic Church. The reality is, and i speak to this because the presbyterian seminary was located at Hampden Sydney there were several of our initial southern presbyterian evangelical missionaries who went to brazil in the late 1860s. Not to convert but essentially to be a chaplaincy presence two people who had immigrated as confederados. There was a strong appeal by a theology professor who had been on the Stonewall Jackson staff to get some people from this area to go to brazil as confederados. He made an especially strong appeal to mrs. Thornton, who lived over here on beech street because her husband had been killed at sharpsburg. Lee visited her home in farmville. But she had 4 young boys. He said they had their best chance to get out of here and go to brazil. The local minister told him to leave parishioners alone. The reality is that southern presbyterian denomination opened up a Foreign Mission field in brazil but it was really to be a chaplaincy outreach to our kind of people there. Professor clabough thank you. I had a quick question. Do you think the majority of the people left for political reasons . Not wanting to live under yankee rule or was it economics, perhaps hoping to establish a Slave Institution in brazil or elsewhere . Do you have information about the states that they were more likely to have left . Deep south like alabama or mississippi or upper south . I would think it would be deep south but i am guessing. Professor clabough let me start with your last question. Yes, it was predominantly deep south states where the brazilian government advertised. The ports lended themselves to transportation to brazil as well. There were some virginians and they would have left from norfolk. There was a man from lynchburg who was sort of the point person for gathering people interested i travelingn to brazil. In terms of your other question, thats more difficult economics versus politics. I would say again the fact that the brazilian government was offering land grants, you could essentially go and have free land to work. Obviously that was a draw to people who had been disenfranchised by the war. At the same time, that was accompanied by, even if you had trepidation, it was accompanied by the postsurrender uncertainty. It is difficult to get into that mindset. What is the future of the south going to be . How long are there going to be Union Soldiers running towns and cities . Is there going to be widespread abuse . What is going to happen . That kind of fear and anxiety coupled with the economic factor , those elements worked in tandem to draw people to brazil. My name is dennis. Can you describe higher profile can veterans that went down south or were these ordinary folks . Professor clabough again, going back to i brought up lee and his disdain for people leaving the south. Some of that stature had alternatives after the war. There were things he could do because of his rank and fame and standing. So it was more, i would say Junior Officers and below. I mentioned the colonel William Norris settlement. I would say from that military rank and below were predominately the people who left. Again, going back to dr. Colts question about why the motivated to go, there had to be an economic need and also possibly a political drive as well. Or a political concern about what the future held. England and france never did recognize the confederacy. Did brazil . Or did brazil take sides in the war . Professor clabough it is interesting. Throughout the war brazil was essentially prosouthern. Largely the reason for that, you would think it might have to do with the issue of slavery. As near as i could discover, it had mostly to do with the brazilian emperor they were still an empire at that time. The emperors name was dom pedro ii. Essentially, the u. S. Ambassador to brazil at the time, from washington d. C. Had personally insulted dom pedro ii at some social occasion. And so that was the main reason that there was not a closer association between the brazilian government and washington, d. C. It had less to do with politics and more with the whim of the emperor. So again thats where governmental and cultural differences come into play. The ambassador, the u. S. Ambassador was kind of a pushy person. That did not go over well with someone who is titled as emperor. Yes, sir . In connection with the settlement of some ex confederates in other latin american countries was there in the case of the brazilian exconfederates, whether any x confederates who might have organized the migration to brazil. If i understand your question correctly, for lack of a better term people sent to brazil ahead of time and organized . Even to the point of organizing people here in the United States to get on board ships and go down. Certainly there was an operative for the brazilian government to help round up people in the Central Virginia area who might be interested in going to brazil, identify them, and get them organized to travel to their and charter ship to send them on their way to brazil. There were people like that in different cities in the south who championed the brazilian alternative, and then there were southerners in some cases usually the male of the family who would go ahead to scout out the area, check out where the land grants were going to be, make arrangements with the brazilian government, and then it they did not like what they saw, then they might come back and consider staying in the south. More often than not they went. I was thinking of that because of this example you gave of the farmer who had been there for some time. It sounded like the area he settled in was not as promising as some of these other areas. Most of the areas brazil is an enormous country where north, west, and a little south of Rio De Janeiro, and that is essentially a tropical like environment i mentioned the banana trees, for example, for the tennessee gentlemen. You know, the ground is typically very rich, but as you saw, the main problem was not having the proper equipment, funding, and the language barrier as well. For the most part, they had to stick together much of the way that immigrants do when they come to the United States today is today. If their mastery of english isnt strong, they tend to develop subcommunities within the Larger Community to help them cool pool that was the situation with the confederate routers confederados. Thank you. This will be our last question. Do you know if there are other countries other than brazil for these e xconfederates, or these africanamericans who may have been freed or they immigrated on their own to other countries in south america . Oh, sure, yeah, my research was specifically on the con federados who emigrated to brazil, but there were some who democratic it some who emigrated some who immigrated to mexico as well. Britain, france, and even africa. There is a film from the 1990s called ghost in the darkness. Its about a cold a former confederate soldier who becomes a professional line hunter in africa. A lot of the southerners ended up all over the place. There are all kinds of stories. Those kinds of disastrous disastrous occur at the end of war. That is part of the reason why there has not been more Research Accomplished on the confe derados. Although i challenge students and scholars to research in this area. I think its a promising area of [inaudible] thank you, casey. And its legacies. John hennessy. [applause] good morning. Thank you, david. I dont know if any of you recognize the effort that goes into a conference like this. The staff is working like dogs to create a program that will connect all of you hopefully in a meaningful way to this history. Its for a good to be here. This is one of the few longstanding, and during conferences every year. Most of them have faded away but this one simply does not. Every year it seems to get better and better. It is nice to be here. Im going to turn the tide on you this day a little bit and ask you some questions rather than have you ask me questions, although we will get to that as well. Why is the civil war so dam hard for americans to deal with . We will talk about the war as it extends beyond appomattox, but i want to start with a story to kick us off. A couple of years ago i did a program and have done a number of programs, but this one was for a well red educated, aware, broad thinking group. It was a program on slavery. And emancipation. It was a pretty straightforward historical program. When i was done, i asked the audience, there were about 60 or so people, i said, and they were probably a little baffled by this, i said who do you think about it for for president in the last election . And, this was in 2009, so was john mccain or barack obama. About 80 of them raise their hand and projected or guess that i voted for barack obama. Im not going to take you whether they were right or wrong. My point is, isnt that interesting . That i could give a talk about history so distant is a hundred and 50 years ago and people, thoughtful people, what conclude from that conclusions about my political thought. Isnt that interesting . That is part were going to get back to the question as we go on today. We will revisit that towards the end, but i just wanted to share that as kind of a kickoff. Now, the thing about how we portray our history and how we perceive our history, we see it to the statues of our founders our military heroes, frozen in time, almost always a noble forms. We see our history and priceless artifacts, on platforms in light in museums, often times almost surrounded by pillows to protect them. We see lincolns second inaugural address on the walls of the monument to him. The memorial to him and washington, d. C. We see gettysburg left as it was, or so we think. Even our civil war battlefields, when we are permanent, would we do. We remove the light from them the modern intrusions. We make them set pieces. We make them static. Our minds eyes can work in an uncluttered environment. That is a remarkable experience. The monuments that i believe that populate these places are frozen in time. Gettysburg, a monument sits yes, they were there. But they are also over there and over there and over there, but we take our history and very simple forms. Some of this is not to argue against these things, but some of this is clearly unavoidable. There is one commonality to all these things. They portray a person, a moment, or event in its simplest and often most flattering forms. As a nation, we are addicted to simplicity. We love to embrace the truisms that run through our lives. Washington may not have cut down the cherry tree, but he never told you lbj was the last of the frontier president s, he wouldve told you. And it an exhibit i did would take you that as well. Grant was a butcher. He was noble. Gettysburg was the turning point. Appomattox is where the nation reunited, at least thats what the billboard is to say. Appomattox seemed to capture the simplicity of the whole thing. Into the story. All of these things are ingrained deeply in our culture in our memory, some of them appear in School Curriculums across our land. If you will, think for a minute about the memories of your own life, our memories are also always far simpler than the lives were as we live them. They are neatly organized, far more organized than our expense actually was. The same is true for our national memories. We compile it into distinct periods of time with distinct characteristics characterized by ideas or fax facts simplicities that become conventional wisdom. More than that, these nuggets of conventional wisdom that run through our history, through our culture, often become over time governed by rigid rules. Especially when there are people who have a personal stake in the history that we are talking about. Now, what happens to violators of those conventions . Those who acknowledge complexities rather than simplicities . Or worse, deny the simplicities altogether . What happens to them . They are invariably assaulted in some way not physically, of course they are labeled unpatriotic. They are labeled unproductive divisive revisionist politically correct. Those of the words that we use as when somebody violates one of our cherished simplicities. We often react to that as a body does to an infection. We try to contain it and stamp it out, as your bodies does, and render it in her there is a great irony in that. It is our commitment to conventional wisdom and the simplicities of that all those things entail is that commitment to simplicity that invites contention. It backs argument. So it is our commitment to simplicity that provokes people to argue the complexity of these events. And so our history does not sit on like that platforms in museums. It is not embodied by statues in our parks or monuments on our battlefields. Instead, history rides a raucous tide, constantly shifting, reeling back, always cut by crosscurrents, always slowed by eddies, and every scroll swirl, every time someone disrupts the flow as we perceive it, it either engages and false