Americana, São Paulo
Sent by Isabella, a postcrosser from Brazil.
This is from Wikipedia : Americana is a city (município) located in the Brazilian state of São Paulo. As of the year 2000, Americana had around 203,000 inhabitants.
The original settlement evolved around the local railway station, founded in 1875, and the development of a cotton weaving factory in a nearby farm.
After 1866, several Confederate refugees from the American Civil War settled in the region. Following the Civil War, slavery was abolished in the United States. In Brazil, however, slavery was still legal, making it a particularly attractive location to former Confederates, among whom was a former member of the state senate of Alabama, William Hutchinson Norris. Heavy Italian immigration at the end of the nineteenth century and beginning of the twentieth reduced the proportion of residents of Confederado descent to a mere ten percent or so of the current population, and only about a dozen English-speaking families remain in the area.
Around three hundred of the Confederados are members of the Fraternidade Descendência Americana (Fraternity of American Descendants). They meet quarterly at the Campo Cemetery.
The city was known as Vila dos Americanos ("Village of the Americans") until 1904, when it belonged to the city of Santa Bárbara d'Oeste. It became a district in 1924 and a municipality in 1953.
Americana has several museums and tourist attractions, including the Pedagogic Historical Museum and the Contemporary Art Museum.
Rio Branco Esporte Clube, founded in 1913, is the football (soccer) club of the city. The team plays their home matches at Estádio Décio Vitta, which has a maximum capacity of 15,000 people.
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