SANTA BARBARA D’OESTE, Brazil (AP) – It had all the trappings of a down-home country fair somewhere well below the Mason-Dixon line: Lynyrd Skynyrd medleys, mile-long lines for fried chicken, barbeque and draft beer, and a plethora of Confederate flags emblazoning everything from belt buckles to motorcycle vests to trucker caps.
But Sunday’s party marking the 150th anniversary of the end of the American Civil War took about 5,000 miles (8,000 kilometers) south of the South, in a rural Brazilian town colonized by families fleeing Reconstruction.
For many of the residents of Santa Barbara d’Oeste and neighboring Americana in Brazil’s southeastern Sao Paulo state, having Confederate ancestry is a point of pride that’s celebrated in high style at the annual “Festa dos Confederados,” or “Confederates Party” in Portuguese.
Thousands turn out every year, including many who trace their ancestry back to the dozens of families who, enticed by the Brazilian government’s offers of land grants, settled here from 1865 to around 1875. They’re joined by country music enthusiasts, history buffs and locals with a hankering for buttermilk biscuits or a fondness for “The Dukes of Hazzard.”
“I don’t speak English and the only place I’ve been to in the U.S. is Disneyworld, but I feel the heritage,” said 77-year-old Alcina Tanner Coltre, whose great-great-grandparents migrated from Mississippi along with their 15-year-old son. “My great-grandfather married a Brazilian woman, so he integrated into Brazilian culture pretty quickly, but it’s really important to me to come out every year to remember where we come from.”