page_title: American Brazilians
section_title: Confederado phrases in Brazil
hierarchical_section_title: American Brazilians / American contributions to Brazilian Life / Confederado phrases in Brazil
context_page_description: An American Brazilian is a Brazilian person who is fully, partially or predominantly of American descent or a U.S.-born immigrant in Brazil.
  The Confederados is a cultural sub-group in the nation of Brazil. They are the descendants of people who fled from the Confederate States of America to Brazil with their families after the American Civil War.
  At the end of the American Civil War in the 1860s, a migration of Confederates to Brazil began, with the total number of immigrants estimated in the thousands. They settled primarily in Southern and Southeastern Brazil: in Americana, Campinas, São Paulo, Santa Bárbara d'Oeste, Juquiá, New Texas, former Xiririca now Eldorado, Rio de Janeiro and Rio Doce. A few other places also received immigrants: one colony settled in Santarém, Pará – in the north on the Amazon River – and the states of Bahia and Pernambuco also received a significant number of American immigrants.
  That was one of the main reasons why emperor Dom Pedro II was the first foreign Chief of State and Head of Government to visit Washington, D.C. in 1876 and also attended the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia.
context_section_description: "...My father took part in the 1st Battalion that left Gonzalez. He was hurt in a battle in Virginia and sent back home, but he soon afterwards recovered and went back to the war. He was confined to prison and released. He returned home and once again returned to the battle field. "...In those days of shocking terror, both rebuilding and staying there turned impossible. Daily crimes surrounded us and there was nothing we could do..."
  "Our farm was beautiful, had several acres, good houses, horses and cattle. We had a corn mill, cotton-benefiting machineries (...) The Brazilian government received us very well, hosted us on the Immigrant Hotel, thus giving us shelter and food. It was my duty to explain that we were not immigrants. We were refugees. War refugees."
  "I have sugar cane, cotton, pumpkins, squash, five kinds of sweet potatoes, Irish potatoes, cornfield peas, snap beans, butter beans, ochre, tomatoes and fine chance at tobacco. I have a great variety of fruits on my place. I have made enough to live well on and am better pleased than other."
  "I remember when I was 4 years old, I was lost in a textile factory and I couldn't tell the people anything because I only spoke English", recalled an engineer and third-generation descendant. "I didn't learn Portuguese until I started school."
  "They came here because they felt that their 'country' had been invaded and their land confiscated," said great-granddaughter of the original McKnight family that moved to Brazil from Texas, in the Southern United States. "To them, there was nothing left there. So, they came here to try to re-create what they had before the war." "I grew up listening to the stories. They were angry and bitter. When they talked about it, moving here, the war, leaving their homes, it was always a very sore subject for them."
caption: Battle flag of the US Confederacy