Latest / Ridiculous History / CLASSIC - Does the US Confederacy Still Exist in Americana, Brazil?

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CLASSIC - Does the US Confederacy Still Exist in Americana, Brazil? · Ridiculous History

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Welcome back to the show Ridiculous Historians. Thank you so
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: much as always for tuning in. Let's get a skirt
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: sound effect or record scratch or something. Yeah. Yeah, that's
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: our one and only super producer, Mr Max Williams. They
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: called me Ben my ride or dime. Mr Noel Brown
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: is currently out, but we'll return it later this week. Max.
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: It's the day after July four, So happy fourth of
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: July to all who celebrate. How is your weekend? Man?
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: It was? It was amazing. I just kind of took
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: it really easy. Watched a lot of baseball and did
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: not play Eldin Ring. I played a better video game
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: called skym Now you know. I I love them both,
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: you know. And it was funny because I almost I
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: almost texted you over the weekend because July four, you know,
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: a bunch of people celebrated that here in the U S.
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: That's this country's in dependence stay and we took a
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: day off. So we have a classic episode coming today.
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: But I thought thematically, this line's up pretty pretty well
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: in a surprising way. We're talking about patriotism of a sort,
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: uh for for not the current United States, but what's
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: known as the Confederacy from a little thing called the
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: American Civil War. The other people, the people who didn't
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: win that thing, right, right, But we're not talking about
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: a celebration that occurs in the US. As a matter
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: of fact, today's classic takes us down south, past the Confederacy,
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: or past the historical home and the Confederacy all the
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: way to Brazil. Now, Um, Max, I think this episode
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: came before you had joined the team, so you might
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: be listening along with us on this one. Huh. Yeah,
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: this is a about two years before I joined the team,
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: maybe three years so yeah, this is all new to
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: me and I'm excited to hear about it. Oh wow,
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: how long have we been doing this show? Well, we
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: hope you enjoy this when folks, this was a fascinating
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: story for Nolan myself and it's it's a wild ride.
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: Heads up, we can't wait to hear your thoughts. Yeah,
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: and make sure to tune in Thursday because we have
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: an exciting episode about government cover ups, chemicals and St. Louis.
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: Lots of fun stuff there. And one last personal note. Today,
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: the day this comes out is ji which is officially
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: my dad's birthday. So happy New Year dad. Um also, wait,
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: I shouldn't have said officially that that sounds sketchy. It's
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: it's his real birthday, Max, it's his real birth al. Right,
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: here we go. Ridiculous History is a production of I
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: Heart Radio. Hello, welcome to the show. I'm Ben. Oh, Hey,
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: I'm sorry, it's me. It's no, it's no. I'm here.
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: I'm here, I'm paying attention, and we're gonna talk about
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: some ridiculous history. Yes, and I believe that was a
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: beautiful snatch of song there, only it would be more like, Uh,
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: I wish I was in Brazil. Hooray, hooray in brazil Land,
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: gonna make my stand to live and die in Brazil. Yes,
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: that's true. And you may be wondering, Ben Noal super
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: producer Casey pegramon, what do these things have in common?
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: What does that? Uh? What does that series of hypnotic
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: sensual music? Thank you? Yeah, look at look at me.
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: I'm just a cloud of cotton candy and you're just
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: the milk of human kindness. We are delving into something
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: that uh that that we were hipped to via our
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: friends Mangesh and will Over at Part Time Genius, one
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: of our Pure podcast They had an episode recently called
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: what's the most American place in the world parentheses outside
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: of the United States. Yeah, and one of the things
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: that came up time and time again were the various
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: Disneyland theme park attractions all across the globe. In fact,
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: in a sten study by Branding Magazine, around five thousand
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: people Americans were asked of which two d forty brands
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: best personified the patriotists of the United States and associated
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: the Disney brand with US patriotism. But that is not
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: what our show is about today, because for truly bizarro
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: unusual taste of Americana outside of the US soil, We're
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: going to head for Do Do Do Do Do Do
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: Do Do Do do do umbras Yes, my friends, specifically
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: to the Brazilian state of South Polo. Uh. You see,
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: in South Polo there is a town, a not insignificant
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: town in terms of population, a city of about two
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: hundred and thirty thousand people called Americana. See we we
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: set it up earlier. This is true, and this city
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: um welcomed somewhere between. According to various accounts, ten thousand
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: and twenty thousand American Southerners after the Confederates lost the
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: Civil War in the at eighteen hundreds. Yeah, when the
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: American Confederacy lost the bloody dispute known as the Civil
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: War here in the US in May of eighteen sixty five.
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: War between the States, the War between the States, Brother
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: against brother Blue v. Gray, all that stuff. A contingent
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: of these Southerners fled the United States entirely seeking to
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: rebuild their lives and carry on the cultures to which
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: they were accustomed. And we do want to warn, of course,
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: that this is not all rainbow glitter trumpets and angel farts,
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: as we will see angel farts. Yeah, you know, I'm
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: just including things that people probably like. You know, I
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: went to a store with my kid over the weekend
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: and she but she's really in the slime, and she
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: bought the slime called unicorn farts. We're done talking about
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: farts now. Now we're going to talk about the settlers
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: and where they came from, which was mainly Alabama, Georgia,
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: and Texas. And they, as Ben said, to preserve their
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: unreconstructed Southern way of life and also escape possible prosecution
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: for treason, no big deal war crimes. Yeah. Uh, In
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: this movement. This group movement occurs due primarily to a
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: fellow named William Hutchison Norris. He is the founder of
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: this town American of Brazil, uh and he was a
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: Mexican American War veteran and also an Alabama senator. He
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: is the one who led the charge along with thirty
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: Confederate families. Believe he was a colonel, right, yeah, I
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: believe so, and he was. He was also just a
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: side note here for anyone interested in some fringe history. Uh.
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: He was a grand Master of the Alabama Masonic Lodge,
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: which is not important to this story, but one of those.
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: Oh not to be confused with a grand wizard. No no,
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: no Alabama. Good luck planning, right and not that we
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: are inflating, No no, no never, We would never and
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: I mean that we would never. We actually we co
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: host a conspiracy realist podcast called Stuff They Don't Want
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: You to Know where if you want to hear more
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: about Illuminati and the like and Masonic rights, check out
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: that show. But yeah, so, Colonel Norris actually established this
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: colony in a town currently known as Santa Barbara d
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: este uh and it was actually sometimes referred to as
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: the Norris colony. And the reason that these uh Confederatos
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: as they were ultimately referred to as, decided to make
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: that trip was because Brazil offered cheap land and slavery
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: was still legal. That's yeah, That's one of the key
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: things here. So a lot of the people moving were
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: agricultural experts, right. Brazil offered cheap land and of incentives essentially, yeah,
• 8:59
  Speaker 1: and an Agrica cultural system with which these families were
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: unfortunately very familiar, which was of course the use of
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: slave labor. And at the time Brazil had an emperor,
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: a fellow named dom Pedro two, and he didn't just
• 9:15
  Speaker 1: you know, turnal blind eye as these families moved in.
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: He wanted them there so much so that he offered
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: to pay moving costs, which you know, I like the
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: way Nol says it. Uh. The idea is essentially like
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: tax incentives. I think the cheap land came as an incentive.
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: It was to entice these new settlers. And also Don
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: Pedro the second was a an ally I guess you
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: could say, of the Confederate cause. So he saw this
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: as an opportunity to get new types of agricultural expertise
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: I guess in his country one of those crops was cotton,
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: which as we know, is very important staple crop in
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: the American South, and Brazilian farmers started to take up
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: these new farming methods that they were taught more or
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: less by the American settlers, the Confederatos, right, And this
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: all begins to happen very quickly after the close of
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: the Civil War. By eighteen sixty six, the region was
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  Speaker 1: becoming noticeably populated with these immigrants from the United States.
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: And we should add that not all of them found success.
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: There were thousands of people who accepted this deal, but
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: only one group of settlers from Alabama, Norris is you know, Cadre,
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: for lack of a better word, thrived And these uh,
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: these folks had surnames that you can find in the
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: town today like baired We got Buford, Clark, and Curry,
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: among others. There's actually a memorial there to this day
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: that highlights of these names like Sanders, Seawright, Skurlock, Smith, Stiegel, Strong, Tanner.
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: And again this all falls under them the serenity of
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: the Suzeranity of Norris. So one thing that's fascinating is
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: that the descendants of these settlers spoke English with a
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: southern accent for generations and over time, as people do,
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: they intermarried with Brazilians who have been living there since
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: way before, and their numbers sword they thrived, they became
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: you would argue, would one would argue, well, actually everybody agrees.
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  Speaker 1: They became essentially Brazilian, right and not just some American exclave.
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: But like many people in the world, even in the
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: modern day, the population of Americana, those two thirty something
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: thousand people love Western music, love Western movies, and of
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: the music they love, they're especially fond of wait for it,
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: country music. Are you a fan of country music, man
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: country and or western? You know? I am a fan
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: of very old country, you know, my my family, without
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: getting too deep into the murky past of the Bowling clan,
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: they they have extensive roots in Appalachia, So bluegrass, gospel,
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: countryment not so I'm not so much a modern country fan.
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: I don't know what about you. I find most modern
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: country music to be pretty un listening a little bit.
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: I'm with you on the classics. Um so let me,
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: let's let's backtrack just to touch sure, let's uh, let's
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: can we get a can we get a backtrack? Thegle noise. Okay,
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: here we are only because I think this is interesting
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: and worth mentioning, because I feel like we glossed over
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: to the tad Don paged Or the Second, the ruler
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: of Brazil during this time. He ruled from eighteen o
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: nine to eighteen sixty five. UM. He was a huge
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: admirer of Abraham him Lincoln. Actually, so we mentioned the
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: whole fact that, you know, slavery was still legal in Brazil,
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: and that may have made it attractive to some of
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: these settlers. They wanted to continue their way of life
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: they were used to. But Dumpagro the Second actually felt
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: like the idea of slavery had the potential to cause
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: a civil war in and in his own country. Seems painfully, painfully,
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: painfully obvious. So he was all about getting rid of slavery,
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: and when he kind of helped pushed through some measures
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: that did that, he was basically deposed. But the work
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: that he did to abolish slavery, you know, persevered, and
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: he actually started with the uh, hopefully not Bucher These
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: too bad, but the Quiros Law of eighteen fifty, which
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: outlawed the slave trade. And then his second one was
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: to proclaim in eighteen seventy one the Lido ventre Livro,
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: which is the Law of the Free Womb, which declared
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: that children born of slaves would also be free, you know.
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: And then finally there was the Lie Area, the Golden Law,
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: which abolished slavery completely in and that actually caused some
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: of the folks that immigrated to Brazil to leave. Also
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: during this time when kind of the whole reconstruction situation
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: changed and it became much more of the Jim Crow
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: you know, post abolition world that we know. Uh, and
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: this bis yes, So there there are several really important
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: things to underlying here. The Golden Law, if we just
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: use the English term for it, is the ultimate no
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: caveats manumission law, freeing one from slavery. The other laws
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: were sort of gradually weakening the type of slavery that
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: existed by degrees and all slavery is deplorable, repugnant, and
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: in my view, in human, But there are several different
• 14:59
  Speaker 1: type and the type of slavery that was practiced in
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: the United States leading to the Civil War, and then
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: type of slavery that was practiced in Brazil at the
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: time intended to be something like chattel slavery. Definitely chattel
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: slavery in the US and in Brazil a very similar system.
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: This means that it's not say, indentured servitude, It wouldn't
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: be um, it wouldn't be, for instance, someone being a
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: slave for seven years until a debt is considered repaid.
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: It's slavery based on bloodline, which means that automatically the
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: child of a slave becomes a slave for life, no escape,
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: and any kids that they have are going to be
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: the property of whomever is considered legally to be the
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: owner of that slave. The reason I brought up the
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: whole situation with slavery in Brazil was because actually some
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: of the newly freed slaves in the US immigrated to
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: Brazil as well, and sometimes they even came with their
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: previous owners. And I found this on an article on
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: Project Gutenberg self publishing press on the Confederados, and it
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: says in this article that there was a situation where
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: a former slave by the name of Steve Watson was
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: given the run of a sawmill in Brazil that belonged
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: to his former owner, a man by the name of
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: Judge Dyer of Texas. And when Mr Watson came back
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: to the US um Dyer actually deeded all of his
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: remaining property to Watson in the area of the Djukia
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: Valley um where there are many Brazilian families with the
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: last name Vaseo, which the Portuguese way of pronouncing Watson.
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: So this legacy perseveres to this day in a pretty
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: interesting way. Many families did end up traveling back to
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: the United States during the Construction era. The settlers who
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: stayed uh became quickly successful to get a reputation for
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: honesty and hard work. The new techniques they brought for
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: existing agricultural products worked well, but they also brought new
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: food crops and new ways of cooking food or preparing it.
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: And as we know, you can learn so much about
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: the human story through the transmission of food, whether we're
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: talking spices like peppercorn or saffron, whether we're talking staples
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: like rice, or how tomatoes made it to Italy, which
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: is its own other story. I guess, before I derail
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: this too much, let'll be let me stay focused on Brazil.
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: I think it's because I just I didn't eat before
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: we came in here. So now food history is automatically, uh,
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: automatically capturing my mind. Just think to just pound the
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: rest of that five hour energy. Dude, just do it,
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: do it? Do it? Uh. Some some of the dishes
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: that were standouts that were very popular in this area Brazil,
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: where things like chess pie or vinegar pie. Fried chicken
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: is vinegar pie. Vinegar pie doesn't have the most appealing name.
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: I would grant you that. Uh. It's it's like eggs
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: with a little bit of cinnamon, sugar and two tablespoons
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: of cider vinegar. He makes something like you feed two
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: kids when they've misbehaved or No. It's the thing people
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: people eat it for fun and it has sort of
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: an apple pie like flavor because of the cid, but
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: there's a custardy vibe to it as well. You know,
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: I haven't tried it. I'd love to hear from someone
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: who has, maybe you know what, friends and neighbors. Thank
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: you so much for listening to show. I'd like to
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: defer to you on this. If you have tried vinegar pie,
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: let us know if this is something that we should
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: delve into, if we should try it ourselves, or you know,
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: warn us if it's a traumatic experience. For you. The
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: Southern food, right, the Southern food is is pretty pretty
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: successful and it catches on. And as we said, these
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: Confederados as they were called, I guess, continue their culture
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: and as best they could, right, And similar to the
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: hippos that traveled to Columbia with Pablo Escobar, they thrived
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: in a way that might seem you know, counterintuitive at first,
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: to the point that this is not just an odd
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: historical footnote, it's a ridiculous historical footnote, right, yes, And
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: it's a current practice because if you travel down to
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: American and Brazil today, you will not just see one
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: monuments and maybe a couple of placards and old farms
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: roll plantations. No, depending on when you go, you I
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: find yourself in the midst of a very strange, very
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: strange party, something of a shin dig, something of a
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: suare you see, every year for the last quarter century,
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: the descendants of these Confederatos gather for a gigantic party
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: that celebrates their vision of Confederate culture, which, you know
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: what is sort of reminds me of did you ever
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: go to Six Flags over Georgia? Yeah? I have season passes,
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: you know that about me? Ben No I'm setting you
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: up the U. I don't know if it's still the same,
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: because it's talking about Lick Skillet Junction right right where
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: they've got Dixie music playing the whole time. I almost
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: picture it like that. So the population of the town
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: gets together, they dress up in gray like Johnny reb
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: uniforms and then hoop skirts, and they dance around to
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: fiddle and banjo tunes. And it's the copious amounts of
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: Confederate flag wavings, shall we say wavings. They even have
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: a dance floor emblazoned with the uh what do they
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: call it, old, old old glory Glory that's it. Yeah,
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: and they're not alone. Over the years, reporters have traveled
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: to check out the celebration, and uh so have Confederate
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: enthusiasts from the United States, Unan actors, descendants themselves from
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: Confederate soldiers and the like. In fact, the first of
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: all the party, the annual festival, is called the Festa Confederata,
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: and um, you know I said, it's marked by Confederate flags,
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: Confederate uniforms, the hoop skirts you mentioned, um, and this
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: fusion of you know, Southern culture with Brazilian culture, dancing um,
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: popular music that you know, like you're saying, banjo music
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: and all the stuff that you would have heard during
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: the Antebellum period. And they have this affection, this affinity,
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: if you will, for the Confederate flag. And then as
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: you know, listeners, as you know, this is something of
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: a problematic emblem today more than ever, I would say,
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: in our country. Yes, here in the United States as
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: we record this in twenty seventeen, Uh, the nation is
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: engaging in a debate about symbols and their historical significance.
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: And one of the big flashpoints for this in our
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: country is always going to be, or has always been
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: up to now, uh, the Confederate flag. Since the end
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: of the Civil War to the modern day. People have
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: argued back and forth about what waiving this flag means, right,
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: And the same thing goes for statues monuments. You know.
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: We are based in Atlanta, where we are just a
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: few minutes drive away from a gigantic Confederate monument known
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: as Stone Mountain. Ya. It's literally a mountain with the
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: big old Confederate uh scene shall we say, um carved
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: into the rock. Um. Who are those dudes? Yeah, there
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: are three Confederate figures depicted in just gigantic scale on
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: on Stone Mountain. They're Jefferson Davis, Robert E. Lee, and
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: Stonewall Jackson. And it's interesting because with all the talk
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: these days in the news about UM you know, removing
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: Confederate monuments from UM cities, the courthouse defensive, they're offensive,
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: they shouldn't be on public land, etcetera. Uh, it came out.
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: It's really interesting that Roberty Lee it was kind of
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: against Confederate monuments in the first place, and then they
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: didn't really pop up until years, you know, after the
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: Civil War. It's a really great quote from Roberty Lee
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: where he says, quote, I think at wiser not to
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: keep open the source of war with to follow the
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: example of those nations who endeavored to obliterate the arcs
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: of civil strife and to commit to oblivion the feelings
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: it engendered. And so back to Brazil, there's actually a
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: really fantastic article in the New York Times about this town,
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: this Santa Barbara Desto. Yeah, yeah, by Simon Romero. Right's
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: right in the very first sentence um in the article.
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna quote because this is great. The set scene
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: Santa Barbara Deasto, Brazil, on a stage festooned with Confederate flags.
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: The singer was belting out dixieland Delight by Alabama near
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: an obelisk, honoring the Americans who fled to this outpost
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: in the aftermath of the Civil War. Here's the important quote.
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: We're not racists, says Cissero car fifty four, an engineer
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: whose great great grandfather hailed from Texas. Wearing a fedora
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: featuring the rebel battle flag. He explained in Portuguese, we're
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: just revering our ancestors who had the good sense to
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: settle in Brazil. This is actually a really really interesting touchpoint,
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: like considering what's going on in our country right now
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: and the arguments for and against removing these relics of
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: the past, and whether it actually means you're actively being
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: racist or you're actively um celebrating celebrating slavery in some way,
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: or you know, um. And I think this is a
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: very interesting case study where this is almost like a
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: weird back to the Disneyland thing. This is almost like
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: this kind of removed version of this, you know, where
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: it's not functional exactly. It's like a I don't know,
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: I think I see what you're saying, because, as as
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: we'll find out at the end, this is not the
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: only situation where something like this has occurred foreign country
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: or in a non US country, or let's even go
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: further and say a country not directly associated with the conflict. UH.
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: That is you know, being celebrated, and it's very important
• 25:58
  Speaker 1: for us to underlie these uh, these following things. The
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: average person celebrating this sees it as a celebration of
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: their own history, the history of Americana Brazil. They do
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: not see it as a, as we said, a celebration
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: of slavery or in any way, UH a celebration of
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: man's in humanity to man or people's in humanity two people. Rather.
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: In fact, the Confederados have downplayed their ancestors interest in
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: maintaining UH slavery system. But you know, this doesn't just
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: include the context of the US. We must also include
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: the context of Brazil, which was the last country in
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: either American continent to abolish slavery. It wasn't until eighteen
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: eighty eight. And then after that, slave like conditions and
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: situations continued. There were still going to be you know,
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: agricultural wage slavery by the best efforts of our boy
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: Dumpage are the second, despite his best efforts. And this
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: means that despite the UH the intervening decades, including nineteen
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: forty where there was a constitutional amendment prohibiting employers from
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: submitting workers to quote conditions analogous to slavery UM, Brazil
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: was still desperate to modernize and this incentivize farm owners
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: to start putting wage laborers in debt and then holding
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: them in bondage, preventing their freedom of movement off the plantation.
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: More that indentured servitude vibe exactly exactly, and Americana itself
• 27:43
  Speaker 1: got caught up in this controversy in two thousand thirteen.
• 27:47
  Speaker 1: In January, the Brazilian Ministry of Labor orchestrated a sting
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: in Americana and it found Bolivian immigrants manufacturing baby clothes
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: under the supervision of two Olivian bosses UH. They broke
• 28:02
  Speaker 1: up the factory, the Ministry of Labor, that is, and
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: they sued. They said the conditions they found were deplorable
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: or execrable enough to constitute slavery. But of every single
• 28:15
  Speaker 1: person or the average person again that you ask about
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: slavery in this town. Most people will say, well, I don't.
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: There's no slavery here, and this is not in any
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: way a celebration of that. So what seems to be
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: a flashpoint of conflict here in the United States is
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: simply a the same thing as like the annual town fair.
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: I think that's what I was kind of poorly stumbling
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: my way towards earlier, is that it feels like that
• 28:45
  Speaker 1: Six Flags or Disneyland kind of recreation of a of
• 28:49
  Speaker 1: a situation where the roots of negativity are somehow kind
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: of whitewashed away a little bit. It doesn't mean it
• 29:00
  Speaker 1: still kind of picks me out a little bit, to
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: be honest, you know what I mean. But um, it's
• 29:03
  Speaker 1: interesting in in fact, in the nineteen seventy two, Jimmy
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: Carter came to the region for a visit to Americana,
• 29:10
  Speaker 1: and in you know, in preparing for his visit, the
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: Americana actually added the Confederate flag into its municipal coat
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: of arms. Um. But actually most people that live there
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: these days are Italian descended, so they removed it because
• 29:27
  Speaker 1: the descendants of the Confederatos apparently now comprised only about
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: a tenth of the population of the area UM. But
• 29:34
  Speaker 1: when Carter was there, he visited the Santa Barbara de
• 29:38
  Speaker 1: Este and visited the grave of um a relative of
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: his wife Rosalind her relatives was one of the original Confederatos.
• 29:48
  Speaker 1: And while he was there he couldn't help but notice
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: that everyone just seemed just like good old Southerners, because
• 29:55
  Speaker 1: we know Jimmy Carter, being from Atlanta as we are, UM,
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: he is the poor a trip of a Southern gentleman. Yes, yes,
• 30:03
  Speaker 1: he knows it when he sees it. So if you're
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: listening to this, Jimmy, feel free to give us a call. Well,
• 30:09
  Speaker 1: answer the phone. It's actually really nice, guys, several where
• 30:12
  Speaker 1: coworkers of METAM. He does all this habitat for humanity stuff,
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: and he's got the Carter Center does all this amazing
• 30:17
  Speaker 1: work election monitoring, yet disease uh, disease mitigation. Yeah. So, Nolan,
• 30:23
  Speaker 1: I want to be clear that we're not denigrating the
• 30:28
  Speaker 1: people in Americana who celebrate this way. We're hopefully painting
• 30:34
  Speaker 1: some of the context here because the idea of and exclave,
• 30:42
  Speaker 1: you know, the idea of people moving to a foreign
• 30:45
  Speaker 1: country and attempting to make it function as if it
• 30:49
  Speaker 1: is just the same thing as the country from which
• 30:53
  Speaker 1: they originated. It's it's a fairly I don't want to
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: say common, but it's not as rare as it might sound,
• 30:59
  Speaker 1: you know. And there have been multiple attempts in South America,
• 31:03
  Speaker 1: even in Brazil by Westerners to sort of recreate the
• 31:07
  Speaker 1: concept of the small town USA or the Confederacy or
• 31:13
  Speaker 1: whatever their cultural slice of the vinegar pie that is
• 31:18
  Speaker 1: American history might be. Still know I feel about that.
• 31:21
  Speaker 1: Can we call it something else? Uh? Do you want
• 31:23
  Speaker 1: to call it delicious? Yum yum pie, apple cider pie.
• 31:28
  Speaker 1: I'm fine with that. That's a little better with that. Hey, listeners,
• 31:30
  Speaker 1: what do you think it should be called? What should have?
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: Disgusting food stuff? How can you make it more palatable
• 31:35
  Speaker 1: just by changing the name? And is it disgusting? There?
• 31:38
  Speaker 1: Is it just the name? I'm being I'm being judging
• 31:40
  Speaker 1: because there's like barley water probably awesome. Have you ever
• 31:43
  Speaker 1: heard of barley water beer? No? No, in the UK,
• 31:48
  Speaker 1: I swear it's squash. And then of course spotted dick.
• 31:51
  Speaker 1: Do you remember that? Maybe King Ralph with John? Yeah,
• 31:54
  Speaker 1: that was great that there's a big joke in that
• 32:04
  Speaker 1: you're welcome girl talk. We just gave them an idea
• 32:06
  Speaker 1: for the next album. I do want to close with
• 32:09
  Speaker 1: just let's let's call it a teaser if we can,
• 32:13
  Speaker 1: for another strange relationship between American governments or the US
• 32:20
  Speaker 1: government and a South American area. It turns out that
• 32:27
  Speaker 1: in Paraguay President Rutherford B. Hayes is immensely popular. Do
• 32:33
  Speaker 1: you ever hear about this? Yeah? He uh, He's immensely
• 32:37
  Speaker 1: popular because he awarded territory to Paraguay as an arbiter
• 32:43
  Speaker 1: in a boundary dispute between Paraguay and Argentina after the
• 32:47
  Speaker 1: Paraguay and War. And we were not gonna We're not
• 32:50
  Speaker 1: gonna just segue into that as a whole another episode.
• 32:53
  Speaker 1: But if you're interested in these sorts of stories, this
• 32:57
  Speaker 1: is a great read. So find out why Rutherford B. Hayes,
• 33:02
  Speaker 1: who is not a name you here often in the
• 33:04
  Speaker 1: US anymore. Oh, Ruthy B. Yeah right right. Actually people
• 33:08
  Speaker 1: had at the time his opponents called him Ruther Fraud.
• 33:12
  Speaker 1: I know, it's dirty, dirty pool, but find you can
• 33:15
  Speaker 1: find out why he remains immensely popular in parts of
• 33:19
  Speaker 1: Paraguay today. And we hope that you will let us
• 33:23
  Speaker 1: know if you find your way down to the Festa
• 33:27
  Speaker 1: Confederata in Brazil. And uh side note, if you're a
• 33:31
  Speaker 1: George Straight fan, Oh buddy, this is supposed to be
• 33:34
  Speaker 1: right up your alley. I'm proud to be in nuts.
• 33:38
  Speaker 1: Who's that Leon green Steve Greenwood case? He just told me,
• 33:43
  Speaker 1: I'm just making up names now Lee Greenwood and you
• 33:45
  Speaker 1: know what that means. Whenever we mentioned Lee Greenwood, that's
• 33:48
  Speaker 1: a new rule on the podcast that nold I just
• 33:51
  Speaker 1: made up. That beings that it's time to wrap up
• 33:54
  Speaker 1: this episode of a Ridiculous History. We hope that you
• 33:58
  Speaker 1: enjoyed it and we would as always love to hear
• 34:02
  Speaker 1: from you. You can find us in our whole team
• 34:04
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• 34:08
  Speaker 1: are Ridiculous History, both of those, and feel free if
• 34:11
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• 34:14
  Speaker 1: know if there's a particular episode in history that you
• 34:18
  Speaker 1: would like us to cover in an episode of our own.
• 34:20
  Speaker 1: Are we not being ridiculous enough? Are you know? Do
• 34:23
  Speaker 1: you do? Do you want to pick apart literally everything
• 34:26
  Speaker 1: that we say we're down? Just do it? Are you
• 34:29
  Speaker 1: not entertained by the ridiculousity that's both the speed of
• 34:33
  Speaker 1: ridiculousness and the direction learned something new every day. Well,
• 34:38
  Speaker 1: we hope you guys learned something and then had a
• 34:39
  Speaker 1: good time, and uh hope you'll join us on the
• 34:42
  Speaker 1: next install, Ridiculous History. For more podcasts from my Heart Radio,
• 34:51
  Speaker 1: visit the I heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
• 34:53
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