The

annual visit of the Confederado kids always takes

place in July.

That's

because they live in the state of Sa� Paulo in

Brazil and it's winter there. Last week the

temperature got down to zero, so you understand

why schools are always closed in July.

Three

"Confederados" stayed three weeks with

various families in Georgia and were taken to all

the historic Civil War sites in the state.

"Confederado"

is the term applied to those Confederate soldiers

who traveled to Brazil in the mid to late 1860s.

The

emperor of Brazil, Dom Pedro II, sent word after

the War Between The States that he would sell

them land at $22 an acre if they would teach his

farmers how to do things better. He did and they

did - they had taken with them a different

kind of plow, which worked well in Brazilian

soil.

The

emperor also asked them to show the farmers how

to grow cotton, as he had personally seen the

world go without this commodity for five years.

Brazil

now leads the world in the production of cotton.

Roughly

as many as 10,000 veterans made the arduous trip

(it still takes 10 hours in a plane) and the

majority of them stayed.

The

direct descendants of these people are fully

aware of who their ancestors were, the state they

were from, the companies they fought under and

the battles they participated in.

Each

Confederate Memorial Day near the end of April,

more than 1,000 get together in Americana and

Brazil, and celebrate their American history.

This

year three descendants came: Ive Souta M M. Lima,

19, of Campinas, Sa� Paulo; Bianca Caroline

Cicotoste, 17, of Iracemapolis, Sa� Paulo, and

Thales Ferguson, 16, of Rio Claro, Sa� Paulo,

visited for three weeks.

They

were hosted, in part, by the Sharpsburg

Sharpshooters Sons of Confederate Veterans Camp

1729. At a ceremony on their last day, they were

given a Confederate flag that had flown in the

Confederate Veteran section of Oak Hill Cemetery,

Newnan, to take back to their SCV camp in Brazil.

Lima's

ancestor is descended from Ezekiel F. Pyles,

South Carolina; Cicotoste is descended from

Calvin McKnight, Texas, and Ferguson is descended

from Green Ferguson, Kentucky.

They

would like to go into dentistry, the travel

industry and the medical field, respectively.

The

Confederados returned with a much better

understanding of their heritage.