Santa Bárbara d'Oeste, a cemetery in Brazil with a large Confederate flag

The Confederate States of America was an independent country that emerged from the secession of the southern states of the United States between 1861 and 1865.

Two Confederate graves from the American Civil War in Normandy, France
The old grave of a United States Army captain in which a stove is buried

With the end of the Civil War on May 26, 1865, came the end of one of the Confederacy's main raisons d'être: the defense of slavery, understood as the right of ownership of slaves by their owners. For many slaves, obtaining freedom was not the end of their nightmares: they had to endure for decades the actions of the Ku Klux Klan, a violent group founded by Confederate General Nathan Bedford Forrest, in addition to racial segregation, which remained in force until 1964.

In 1865, many Confederate sympathizers decided to emigrate because they did not feel comfortable in a country without slaves, that is, where others had the same right as they did to be masters of their lives. Some 20,000 Confederates left for the Empire of Brazil, where slavery remained legal until the passage of the Golden Law on May 13, 1888. Emperor Pedro II of Brazil welcomed them, due to their experience in cotton farming, and offered them land at reasonable prices. The Confederates settled there happily because slaves in Brazil were cheaper than they had been in the Confederate states, and this allowed them to do good business.

Many Confederates settled in the state of São Paulo, where they founded a town called Americana in 1875 in the municipality of Santa Bárbara d'Oeste. Until 1904, the town was known as Vila dos Americanos (Village of the Americans) and formed its own municipality in 1953. Today it has 237,240 inhabitants and an area of ​​133.91 square kilometers.

One of the problems for the Confederates in their new home was that the Empire of Brazil was confessionally Catholic, according to the Imperial Constitution of 1824. The emigrants from the former Confederate States were Protestants and could not be buried in Catholic cemeteries, so one of their first needs to be covered was the construction of their own burial site.

The so-called Santa Barbara d'Oeste American Cemetery began to form on July 13, 1867, when Beatrice Oliver, wife of Confederate Colonel Asa Thompson Oliver, died and was buried by her husband on his land, following a Southern custom. Shortly after, Oliver also had to bury his two daughters, Inglianna and Mildredd Oliver, who died of tuberculosis. Since other members of the Confederate colony in Brazil were not allowed to bury their dead in Catholic cemeteries, Colonel Oliver allowed them to use his land as a burial site, becoming official in 1873.

The cemetery chapel was built in 1878, serving the various Protestant denominations of the members of the Confederate colony (Methodists, Presbyterians, and Baptists). The chapel was rebuilt several times, the current one being in 1962. Since 1954, the cemetery has been managed by the Fellowship of American Descent (FDA), a foundation formed by the descendants of Confederates who emigrated to Brazil. In 1972, the cemetery was visited by Democratic politician Jimmy Carter (later President of the United States from 1977 to 1981), when he was Governor of Georgia. In this video by Aluisio Bertalia we can see a tour of this cemetery:

The American Cemetery is like a relic of the Confederacy in Brazil. In the northern part of the cemetery there is a large Confederate battle flag painted on the ground. This flag also appears on the monolith located right next to it. Today the cemetery houses the graves of some 500 Confederates and their descendants, but one of its most curious facts is that this burial site is also a place of celebration: the so-called "Festa Confederada" (Confederate Festival) is held there annually, where the descendants of the Confederates who emigrated to Brazil dress in the gray uniforms of the Southern Civil War. There are dances with period costumes and dresses, Confederate flags, food and drinks. Here you can see a video of one of these parties published by the FDA YouTube channel:

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Main image: Aluisio Bertalia.