by Dr. Pelham Mead

In my research on the southerners the fled America to live in Mexico and Brazil after the Civil War, I discovered that to this day Americans still live in Brazil and still identify with the Confederate Southerners and their traditions and culture.

Frank McMullen was one of many Texan leaders that led 150 settlers to Brazil. Some went in search for Gold and others to homestead new fertile soil in the river valleys in Brazil. The Emperor Dom of Brazil invited the Americans to settle in Brazil and show the locals how to grow cotton. No one had tried to grow cotton in Brazil before. The confederate settlers also Brought steel ploughs with them to til the fields. Brazilians previously used wooden ploughs. Some Americans brought technology in the working of metals and the making of Gin and other alcohol drinks from stills. Many southerners did not live long enough to see the successes of the many American farms. Since slavery was banned in Brazil, settlers had to plough their own fields and harvest their own crops. Families were big in those days with 8 and 9 children who could help with the chores from an early age.

Part of the settlers were Texas Rangers who served in the Civil War and returned to find their farms burned to the ground and carpet baggers buying up land for pennies an acre. Brazil seemed like paradise at the time.

Frank McMullen never lived to see his dream come true. Soon after he established his farm he died of Tuberculosis which had developed over the years. The sons and daughters of the McMullens still live in Brazil to this day. Those that went in search of Gold found nothing despite the stories of a lost gold mountain deep in the interior.

Some southerners settled on other rivers along the southern coast of Brazil and some even tried northern Brazil where the Amazon emptied into the Ocean. Unfortunately, flooding and disease wiped out the northern settlements and the only surviving colonies are along the southern coast of Brazil along the inland rivers.