Getting it straight II

 It is hard for the inhabitants of Santarem to talk about the city without mentioning the confederados. They made history in Santarem and still do!
Some hundreds of families were brought here by Hasting known for the Donner Party. He was encouraged by the Brazilian(portuguese) royal family that had slave breeding colonies.

The fact is that the confederates who moved to Santarem gave up slavery and only a few families ended up having them. Taperinha was one of the farms slaves were working as slaves.

The confederates became friends and did business with my grand father Julio Serique, they were friends of my father Flavio Serique. My grand-mother is burried by Dave Rikers first wife at Fordlandia, I live in a property owned previously by the Waughon family, Flora's last birthday gift was bought from the Hennington''s and my best friend is a Jennings.

For us it is a lot more a story of love and no hate at all. We are not that stupid and at the worst a lot of us saw Tarantino's, if did not read a thick book about the American Civil war.

I am often lazy to write below the pictures I post on facebook. One day I had a group picture (cruiseship passengers) with a confederate flag after after talking about it. It was not a joke, but it was a fun thing to do, the fact is that the picture was taken, posted  and created got some confusion between me and a friend.

Just to clearify that friend on the left descends from a family of slaves. He passed away a few years ago. Benedito was his name. He did not know the meaning of the flag.

The fun part is what took me to get the flag....

I like using props in my tours, it is an effective to way to educate and stamp messages on people's mind. We used them as well during our English classes at my brothers school.

I have fish skulls to talk about the fish fauna, books, masks you name it.

The prop I wanted now was a confederate flag and I ended up being very surprised to know how difficult was to get one.

My first try was a friend from the USA. He did not even responded my email and he is a real friend.
My second attempt was a friend from Canada, he lives in the USA. I went to E-bay and sent him a link (he was coming a week later to visit me). His answer was....- Gil, If I buy that flag with my credit card, on the next day CIA and FBI together will be knocking on my door.

I finally got it from Bryan, ( an English friend I had for over 30 years, I think he is dead now) who sent it to me without posting the sender address.

It is clear now!

It is all about friends and History

Absolutly Highly Reccomended Reading

There is a lot to write about Victorian blokes, including the ones who lived in my hometown like Bates, Wallace, Spruce. But the one that I aways was more intrigued by was Sir Henry Wickham.

He moved to Santarem late in the 19th century and dragged along his wife, mother, brother and a handful of friends. His major plan was growing rubber trees and sugar cane. He used to supply hat shops in London with Macaw, Toucans and other colourful neotropical bird feather on the side. Violet his wife was making a little dosh teaching the American Confederates children, and her other activities would include caring home and keeping a sort of log book that ended up in my hands some two years ago.

As a pseudo naturalist, his studies on rubber tree were dropped in the hands on Joseph Hooker, director of Kew Gardens, who eventually hired him to collect 70,000 rubber tree seeds and sneak into the U.K.

Wickham's life is wisely told by Joe Jackson, a friend and a five times nominated Pulitzer Prize writer, in The Thief at the End of the World, published in February by Viking.

JoeJackson's and several other books are available at Prof. Flavio Serique School, a.k.a Cultura Inglesa