The Elusive Eden: Frank McMullan’s Confederate Colony in Brazil

Description

Author: Griggs, William Clark  (1932-2003)

Publisher: University of Texas Press

Pub Date: 1987

Binding: Paperback

Condition: Fair.  Binding tight.  No tears, folds.  Acquisition, location and date information on upper corner ffep.  Upper front cover corner has an approx. 1/4″ crease.  Lower front and rear corners worn, slight curling.

Notes: Many Southerners “feared the humiliation, poverty, and even prosecution for treason” that would follow at the end of the Civil War.  Frank McMullan and William Bowen, two Texans, believed the South could continue its way of life in a different country, in this case Brazil.  Land was cheap, slavery was legal, southern emigrants were welcome.  Alas, it was not to be.  McMullan died a few months after arrival, and the other colonists resettled in other areas, including back in the United States.  However, the colony had two lasting effects in Brazil.  The Texans introduced the mouldboard plow, which changed Brazilian agriculture.  The second was the introduction of the Baptist faith.  Baptists now have more than 15,000 congregations and 3.5 million followers in Brazil.