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Belém do Pará

sAnta Maria de Belém do Grão Pará, or simply Belém, is a city of hospitable people and unique beauty is considered the portal of the Amazon. It occupies an area of ​​51,600 ha, where more than half represent islands. Low parts of the city and islands are flooded daily by the tidal waters, while the highest areas reach a maximum of 14 m above sea level. Belém has a warm and humid climate, with an average temperature of 26º C and humidity of 80 to 90% normally, and annual rainfall of 2500 to 3000 mm. The rainy season is from December / January to May and the drought from June to November / December. Belém was founded on January 12, 1616 by Captain Francisco Mordeira Castelo Branco, when it was built at the meeting of the rivers Pará and Guamá, at the elevation called by the Tupinambás Indians of Mairi, a wooden fort, covered with straw, called Fort of the Crib. Today there is the Fort of the Castle. Belém lived its apogee during the rubber cycle, when Northeastern immigrants increase their population. By the time of the nineteenth century, Bethlehem began to take on the aspect of great capital, when streets were paved with cobblestones of granite imported from Portugal, large public buildings emerged, telegraph services via submarine cables, drainage of floodwaters The municipal market, hospitals, barracks, cemeteries, all resulted from the strength of the rubber economy, but the peripheral suburbs remained until 1950 as simple clusters and the rural space almost untouched, being a source of extractive products, firewood and charcoal, and place for homes and retreats of families with power. Belém is rich in history, culture and nature, which can be seen in its most exuberant form in each of its islands, true ecological paradises, that surround the city. Belem is rich in colors, smells and flavors, which can be felt in every corner, in the most typical Brazilian cuisine, fruit of the prodigal nature, Portuguese colonization and Indian and African inheritances. This cultural and racial miscegenation is also present in rich handicrafts and folklore, one side a modern city in perfect harmony with nature, worthy of an Amazonian metropolis, and on the other, the secular architecture of Portuguese origin, with a touch of the neoclassical French. The cuisine is exceptional for its variety, with European and Indian elements, more or less mixed. Despite the heat of the region, many foods are hot and spicy, with regional plant broths, such as tucupí, which is taken from cassava. The fruits, with unmistakable and unknown flavors and smells for people from non-tropical regions, can be savored in natura or as juices and ice creams of superior quality. The cuisine is exceptional for its variety, with European and Indian elements, more or less mixed. Despite the heat of the region, many foods are hot and spicy, with regional plant broths, such as tucupí, which is taken from cassava. The fruits, with unmistakable and unknown flavors and smells for people from non-tropical regions, can be savored in natura or as juices and ice creams of superior quality. Ecotourism is an activity that is based on the conservation of the environment, ecosystems, and can and should use the local workforce to develop various activities, directly creating employment and income for local populations, and indirectly for populations. By its nature, strong attraction of domestic and foreign tourists, it is an exporter of services and importer of foreign exchange. It brings foreign money into the region, which is an important source for the general activation of the economy. of strong attraction of domestic and foreign tourists, is an exporter of services and importer of foreign exchange. It brings foreign money into the region, which is an important source for the general activation of the economy. of strong attraction of domestic and foreign tourists, is an exporter of services and importer of foreign exchange. It brings foreign money into the region, which is an important source for the general activation of the economy.

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W illiam Hutchinson Norris ( Oglethorpe ,Georgia , 1800 - Americana , Sao Paulo , 1893 ) was an American colonel, lawyer, and senatorfrom Alabama . He arrived in Brazil in 27 of December of 1865 , in the port of Rio de Janeiroand was the first American emigrants to settle on land which at the time belonged to the municipality of Santa Barbara d'Oeste and are now part of the current townAmerican . He fought in the Mexican-American War , where he received his colonel rank.

Contents 
1 Biography 
2 References 
3 
External links

Biography
William Hutchinson Norris was born in the state of Georgia but spent most of his life in Alabama in the city of Mobile . He fought in the Mexican-American War , where he received his colonel rank . His sons Robert, Frank, Reece, and Clay Norris fought in the American Civil WarRobert Noris was named sergeant major and fought in several battles, not being hit by luck. He was promoted to lieutenant in the 60th Alabama Regiment and discharged on September 20 , 1864 . At age 65, Colonel Norris came to Brazil to plant cottonalong with his son Robert Norris. 
In 1866 , William and his son climbed the Serra do Mar , stopped in São Paulo and speculated lands. They were offered free lands where today is the neighborhood of Brás , but he did not accept because it was swamp. They also offered them the land where St. Caetano is today , and refused for the same reason. They decided to go to Campinas , but at the time, the railroad was only 20 kilometers beyond São Paulo , and it was no advantage to catch it, and Campinasis 90 kilometers from São Paulo. Then the Norris bought a ox cart and headed for Campinas. It took them 15 days to reach the city, and there they stayed for a while looking for land, until they cast their sights on the plain that stretched from Campinas to Vila Nova da Constituição (now Piracicaba ). 
The Norris bought land from the sesmaria of Domingos da Costa Machado and settled on the banks of Ribeirao Quilombo , where today it is the center of the city of Americana . As soon as he arrived, Colonel Norris began to teach practical agricultural courses to farmers in the region, interested in cotton cultivation and new agricultural techniques. The plow he brought from the United Statescaused so much sensation and curiosity that, in a short time, they already had a practical school of agriculture, with many students who paid him for the privilege of learning and still cultivating his fields. The Colonel wrote to his family that he had gotten $ 5,000 from that. In the middle of 1867 the rest of his family arrived accompanied by many relatives.

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Anda very hot day in January 1866 in Rio de Janeiro, capital of the Empire, when the two men met at the Hotel dos Estrangeiros. Both were tall, light-skinned and integrated with Freemasonry. The similarities stopped there. One of them was Dom Pedro II, the proud monarch of the tropics. His interlocutor, Colonel William Hutchinson Norris, maintained the guise of an officer in the Confederate army and a senator from Alabama, a US state. Arrived in Brazil on December 27, 1865, he still carried in the body marks of the war that his country had fought against Mexico. His sons Robert, Frank, Reece and Clay had fought in the Civil War ( see text below), which cost the lives of more than 600,000 compatriots. And it could not be said that the situation of the emperor was better: the Paraguayan War had begun about a year ago, which would bring to death a similar number of Brazilians, Paraguayans, Argentines, and Uruguayans. 
The rest of the Norris family would come four months later, with 35 more immigrants, on the Talismam sailing boat, which had left the port of New Orleans. The saga of US immigration to Brazil began at that meeting - a contingent of about 2,700 people, the largest migratory current in US history. The Brazilian monarch was very interested in the arrival of these men, so much that he had installed an immigration office in New York, under the command of Quintino Bocaiúva.
The cotton fields of the Confederate states, as a result of the war, were devastated, and Pedro II wanted the immigrants to repeat in Brazil the success with this culture in their native homeland. A certain ideological identification between the Empire and the South of the United States - slave and agrarian, in contrast to the north, industrialized and abolitionist - helps explain the preference for Brazil. After defeated, the Southerners saw, with horror, the invasion of their lands by the victorious soldiers, who destroyed the plantations and also their aristocratic farms.
By train, most of the newcomers went to Santos and later to Jundiaí. From there, they went to the city of São Bárbara d'Oeste, where they founded the largest American community in the country, giving birth to the American neighbor - at that time Villa Americana -, 124 kilometers from São Paulo.
Rich man, with the gold he brought, Colonel Norris would buy the hacienda Machado and the slaves Manuel and Jorge, to whom he would teach English, with a southern accent. The rest of the community could only acquire smaller areas and survive with more difficulty, knocking down the native forest to plant. In the beginning, the newcomers would only live among themselves, strangely speaking the language, the customs and even the physical appearance of the Brazilians, generally dark-haired, bulky, with dark eyes, in contrast to them, blond and light- almost all thin and tall.
Almost 50 years later, the Americans would face other immigrants, who would presumably later become their mortal enemies. They were refugees from the 1917 Revolution in their land, who would settle in New Odessa, only three miles from Americana, where their compatriots had lived since the beginning of the century. But since the Americans were not Yankees and the Russians were not even sympathetic to communism, the contact between the two communities, both of which were made up of farmers, was always peaceful even in the Cold War.

Over time, Americans would begin to integrate with the local community, which gave rise to some picturesque situations. One of them came from the watermelon seeds, known as the "Georgia rattlesnake," which they had brought in their luggage. By 1890, an outbreak of yellow fever coincided with one of the earliest fruit crops, and health authorities vetoed her sale because she thought it transmitted the disease. It was necessary that the scientist Oswaldo Cruz discovered the cause of the disease so that the watermelon trade, prohibited for more than a decade, was released.

In addition to cotton of a type superior to the one existing in the country, the Americans would introduce other novelties in Brazilian agriculture, such as the animal-drawn plow instead of the limited hoe, and a metal wheel trolley that supplanted the heavy ox carts . But it was in education that they made their greatest contribution, through missionary schools and their schoolmasters (teachers) and schoolmarms (teachers). From the methods used by the pastors who accompanied the immigrants from Santa Bárbara and Americana, a new model of education emerged, which was eventually absorbed by the Brazilian government - the so-called "decoreba" and the physical punishments, very common in the education of that period, were abolished. Presbyterian missionary Mary Chamberlain and her husband, Rev. George Chamberlain, founded the American School in São Paulo, which would give rise to the current Mackenzie University. The creators of the Methodist University of Piracicaba (Unimep) also left the community.

In terms of religion, the Americans would introduce Protestantism into Brazil. The first chapel of the country that served the three denominations - Presbyterian, Baptist and Methodist - was erected in Campo Cemetery, spiritual center of the community in Santa Bárbara, dating from 1878. In the assistance area, the immigrants also made their contribution: Pérola Byington (1879-1963) founded the Pro-Childhood Crusade and the hospital that bears his name in São Paulo. 
It could also be said that the confederates helped create Brazilian rock. Rita Lee Jones, co-founder of the Mutants, is the daughter of dentist Charles Jones, a descendant of Colonel Norris. 

Memory preserved
To this day, the descendants of these immigrants make a point of maintaining their traditions. On the property where the Campo Cemetery is located, on lands that belonged to Colonel Anthony Oliver, every second Sunday in April, the community, represented by the non-governmental organization Fraternidad Desendencia Americana, is amused by old songs and dances typical of the rebel south with the boys dressed in Confederate soldiers and the girls as clones of Scarlett O'Hara in And the Wind Took. At such times, the cars display the Confederate flag.
During the celebration, everyone savors typical dishes such as fried chicken, cornflakes, biscuits, ham, cakes, pies and refreshments. From time to time, they are visited by "cousins" from the southern states. In 1972, one of them, then Governor of Georgia, Jimmy Carter, visited the Field Cemetery four years before becoming president of the United States. His wife, Rosalyn, has a great-uncle buried there. Curiously, the community was the subject of a study by Eugene C. Harter, a journalist and former US consul in São Paulo, who wrote the book The Lost Colony of the Confederation, which was very successful in his country.
Allison Jones, a public relations officer for the NGO representing the community, says she was discriminated against in New York because of her English accent, and was a victim of explicit racism on the part of New York blacks. In the south, when traveling in a bus with 40 passengers, all black, except him and the driver, the feeling was diverse. "Although Brazilian, I felt at home and I was treated well by all."
A student of Unimep's history and descendant of Richard (Dick) Crisp, an American who challenged the racism of his own community by marrying a black slave, Frederico Padovese participated five years ago in an experience that has relegated him to the past. Through a fraternity agreement with the Virginia-based Sons of Confederate Veterans (or SCV) NGO, he joined a Confederate battalion in the re-creation of the Battle of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, in July 1863. In the midst of cannons and weapons of the time, he slept in tents and ate the bland ranch.
The university says it is proud of its origin, but the feeling is not directed at the United States as a whole, but at the south of the country. "When I hear of US imperialism, I say that the Civil War was the first US imperialist onslaught, in the case against a part of its own people, who wanted the separation to disagree with the central government," he says. To this day, much of the descendants of immigrants refer to themselves as confederates and to the North Americans as Yankees, the same nickname given to the inhabitants of that nation by their opponents, among which are members of leftist currents and militants anti-globalization. 

Old days
Healthy and active at age 88, Maria Weissinger of the Cross is one of the oldest descendants of Americans in Santa Barbara. His grandfather, John Wesley Weissinger, when he arrived in 1866, would win the nickname "John of Mato", because the Brazilians had difficulty speaking his name. 
With a strong hickory accent, Dona Maria, as she is known, brings in the traces the mark of Anglo-Saxon origin. The main memories of his youth are the dances, practically frequented only by people of the community. "The parties were very fun, they were always held on the farm of someone from the colony. The girls did everything to go," she says.
On a visit to the city, Dona Maria, who was then living at the Palmeiras farm, met the Portuguese João da Cruz, who would become, against the will of the family, her husband. His father, Albert, wanted his children to marry within the community. At the time of the ceremony, the priest, who did not want to officiate because she was a Presbyterian, was surprised. "Shortly before, I had converted to Catholicism, and I showed him the document, which was disconcerted," he says. The father - who would still have to sour the fact that the three other children marry a Brazilian, a German and an Italian - appeared the next day and apologized.
The Brazilians said, according to her, that the chain of the city, inaugurated in 1896, would be used to arrest the Americans. Some of them, rich and famous as badgers, would enter the bars on horseback and ask for drips, which they drank without dismounting. Others, especially the Texans, wou