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The Selma Times and Messenger

Selma, Alabama

05 Apr 1868, Sun  •  Page 1

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                                                       A Paradise in Brazil.                                                                                                                 Fruits, Vines and Flowers                                                             Pure water, Fine Climate, Good Health. 

     The following letter from General A. T. Hawthorne, late of the Confederate Army, an old Alabamian, certainly presents Brazil in the most attractive light, to which we have not yet seen it and thousands who know the author will vouch for the honesty and fidelity with which he has presented his first impressions of the country. It is another question whether the same gentleman will color his pictures so warmly a year hence. It was addressed to a friend in Greenville and was first published in The Advocate of that [lace.

City of Bahai. January 22, 1868.                                                                                                                                                        Since I left Rio de Janeiro, I have traveled over 5,000 miles in search of a home on the Corrientes, one of the tributaries of the San Francisco. I found a country that is an earthly Paradise, but it had as well be in the center of Africa as where it is. It is a thousand miles from the sea with a great river like the Mississippi, it is true running past it - but then that river has near its mouth a second edition of Niagara Falls over which nothing can pass or live. The country suited me exactly, but its remoteness from the sea, the difficulty of getting here, and the impossibility of getting anything away from there determined me to look further. And I am glad I did. For I have at last found a country where I sincerely believe our people may prosper and be happy. I have found a home for myself and as many more as may choose to come. If you will take the map of Brazil and look in the southern portion of the province of Caltin, you will see two rivers. The Jequitinhouha and Bel Atlantic. I have spent the last four weeks in examining the lands upon those two rivers, both of which are true navigable streams. I have selected lands upon the Belmont River about 80 miles from the mouth and I am perfectly delighted with my choice. I shall buy about 8,000 acres for the benefit of myself and immediate friends who may see proper to come.

     The government proposes to build a comfortable house and clear six acres of land for every family that will come and occupy it, giving them 5 to 6 years credit in which to pay for the improvements and it proposes to continue this work immediately provided someone will become responsible to the government that families will come and occupy these places when prepared. This I propose to do to the number of 10 or 15 families, and the government is very willing to trust me. The great difficulty with our people in coming to this country is that unless they have money to improve places, they have to go into the woods and without houses or farms begin do novo and the consequence is that great numbers are discouraged - the difficulty I propose to obviate by building houses, clearing and planting some land before the emigrants arrive so that when he lands he will find a comfortable house to shelter him and a growing crop  that will feed him. And in order that this may be certainly done and well done, I shall remain here myself and superintend the whole matter.

     I am going to Rio de Janeiro tomorrow where I shall make final and complete arrangements with the government. I shall ask the government to set aside and reserve all the public lands lying between the Belmont and Pardo, from the seashore to the boundary line of Minas Geraes for the exclusive benefit of our people. Nearly every acre of it now belongs to the government and if this course is adopted, here is a magnificent tract of country forty miles wide and more than one hundred in length upon which our people may settle without molestation from anyone and without being the victims of speculators and sharpers. In some of the American colonies of this country, lands have already gone up to $15 per acre. If the government will listen to me, all this matter will be remedied and prevented. On the Belmont and Pardo, I intend to ask of the government many other concessions and favors for our people, of which I will inform you in due season.

     I suppose you will like to know what sort of a place I have selected for our future home. I will try to tell you. The lands I have selected front upon the Belmont River six miles and run back from the river two miles from the river's edge. The land gradually rises until it reaches an elevation of at least two hundred feet, when it stretches away for miles and miles, one vast elevated plain covered with the tallest and straightest and most magnificent timber that I ever saw. Some of this timber is the most valuable in the world. There was formerly a large amount of rosewood on these lands, but near the river, most of it has been cut off and shipped away. Still, I found one tree on the land which I have selected, that is large enough to make all the furniture the families would need and would be worth today in the city of New York, $2,000 to $3000. There are a great many other kinds of timber on these lands that are considered more valuable than the rosewood.

     As to the quality and fertility of the lands - ask Pa what he knows about the rich hammock lands of East Florida. These are just such lands, except that they are richer and lie better than the Florida lands. I have traveled over the whole of them in company with Col. Lightner, who has lived and been planting upon a large scale in East Florida for the last fifteen years and he says that the country is far superior to the rich hammocks of Florida. And as a proof of his sincerity, he has bought a magnificent tract of land on the Pardo and is now living upon it; having written back to his family and friends to make their arrangements and join them as soon as possible. The lands are rich,you may rest assured of that - as rich as the decaying foliage of forty centuries can make them!

      I can scarcely restrain myself from shouting aloud when I think of this wonderful country, which, as I believe has been mercifully reserved by the kind Benefactor for the home and final resting place of our oppressed people. Do you want good fruit? In no portion of Brazil or of the habitable globe can you find better oranges, bananas, and pineapples than grow here in the province of Bahia and there are twenty other kinds of fruit more delicious even than those I have named, whose names even I never heard of until I came to Brazil that are growing and ripening all the year. Do you want a country that will produce all the great staples of the world and produce them to perfection? Well, the province of Bahia comes nearer filling the bill than any country I have yet seen. Sugar, coffee, cotton, tobacco, rice, and corn grow here to perfection. Near the coast, it may be too wet for short-staple cotton, but after leaving the coast a hundred or more miles, it grows and bears magnificently. But none of these things would have moved me or caused me to select the section of the country I have,had I not been convinced beyond all doubt that the country was healthy - if it is not so that I am the worst deceived man on earth. There is not a gallon of stagnant water in ten miles of where I shall build my house. Nor has there been, nor will there be. But on the contrary, the whole tract is checkered here and there with the most beautiful brooks and rivulets that I ever saw in my life. They glide over beds of beautiful white sand and gravel, and though their waters are as pure and as delicious to the taste as those that trickle and murmur at the foot of the Blue Ridge itself. And no land or country have I ever seen or drank better water. These streams afford sufficient water to turn any amount of machinery that we may need; in fact, every man may have him a mill if he so desires. Well, then, if  upon this vast elevated plain with the blessed trade winds forever fanning our cheeks and these pure and delicious waters gliding past our dwellings; if with the forests abounding with game, the river with fish, and the earth groaning beneath its precious load of staple products, vegetables, and delicious fruits - if, with all these advantages we do not enjoy good health, then I despair of ever finding a place where we can.

     As to climate, the thermometer never rises above 90 and never goes below 60 degrees. The nights are very cool. I have not suffered one-tenth part as much with heat since I have been in Brazil as I should have suffered during the summer season in any portion of the United States.

     As to markets, we are only 80 miles from the sea, upon a stream that is navigable the entire year; and when we get to the sea, we are 200 miles from Bahai and 400 from Rio de Janeiro, and those are the best markets in Brazil. We can choose between them. I have not mentioned the most important crop that is planted in the immediate section of the country where I have selected my future home. It is called cacao ( pronounced cacow), and is without doubt the most valuable crop that has ever been planted in Brazil, or perhaps any other country on the globe. It is the fruit from which chocolate is made and can only be grown successfully in certain localities, one of which favored localities is the section of the country where I have chosen. I expect to turn my attention principally to the cultivation of this valuable fruit.

     I see enough to satisfy me that I can make twice as much money here as I ever made in the United States and with one-half labor at that.

     But I will not say that there are no objections to the country. There are mosquitoes here, but I have not seen as many during the five or six months that I have been in Brazil as I have many times seen upon the Mississippi or its tributaries in the space of forty-eight hours. They have snakes here and some terrible big poisonous fellows. But I have traveled in canoes, on horseback, and on foot by day and by night - I have been five months upon the trip and it has been warm enough all the time for snakes - and yet I will take a solemn oath that during those five months and during this long and tiresome journey, I have seen only six snakes. They were all small. One was a little green fellow, about twelve inches long, two greater snakes, two of Kingsnakes, and the other was double-clicking to the thicket so rapidly that I failed to make a notice of his color, size or qualities. There are mighty anacondas and boa constrictors here that can crush and munch and swallow an ox, but have yet to find a living man who has ever seen one. There are cannibals here, wild Indians who kill and eat people and I have even passed through the very section said to be infested by them. Yet night after night have I lain upon the banks of that mighty river, in the dense shade and deep solitudes of its forest, and I have slept as sweetly and as quietly as I did when my good mother rocked me to sleep in my infant cradle upon the banks of the old Sepulga. Nay more, I have heard a terrible story that there are plenty of them not more than a hundred miles from where I am going to settle. Yet, after the most diligent and faithful inquiry from those who live nearest to the savages, I have never been able to find a man who has ever heard of a savage being seen in the last thirty years. I have tried long and faithfully to find a man who ever saw one, but thus far I have failed completely.

     "Yet there are other disadvantages," says some good Southern man, who has returned from Brazil dissatisfied and Perfectly disgusted. Although they have slavery in Brazil, yet they have a great many free negroes there who are permitted to vote and some of them to hold office. Well, this is true. The qualification for voters here is a property qualification. And when the free negro possesses that qualification, he is allowed to vote. And when he possesses certain requisites, he is sometimes appointed to office; but he is not like the American negro, taught to believe himself to be superior to the White man. On the contrary, although his father and his grandfather both before him were free. Yet true to nature and to natural laws, he has set to his seal that God is true, in that he has all at all times and in all ages made and designed the white man superior to the black one and I do most solemnly aver that I have never in the whole course of my life, (even when slavery in the South was in its palmiest and most unquestioned power) found the negro more ready and more willing to acknowledge my right to supremacy and command than I have found the free negroes of Brazil since I have been within the limits of the Empire. They have made the trustiest and most faithful servants I have ever had. But I honestly and sincerely believe that freedom is the worst curse that can be put upon the negro whatever the clime or country in which it is done. True to his native instincts, he shuns labor and will not work, save only when driven to it by stern necessity.

     The true men of Brazil have already seen the horrors of emancipation and amalgamation, and they are hailing with shouts of joy, the arrival in their midst of true men from the South. Fear not everything is going right. Let our people emigrate to this country and all will be well. We shall have no trouble upon this question in our little colony, for there are very few persons living in its limits, either white or black. There are more than two million of slaves in Brazil, and I see no indication of general emancipation -      if the tide of immigration that has, set in from the South should continue, the day of emancipation in Brazil will be postponed until God Almighty sees proper and order it; and if we are true to our race and lineage to the religion of our fathers and to the God of the Bible, we shall swell that tide until it assumes proportions as grand and sublime as the causes to which have impelled us to this exile. But enough!  Brazil is a thousand times better than the United States in every particular which can interest us. Let that suffice.