Texas exile dies in Brazil

On this day in 1867, Francis McMullan, the leader of a group of Texans who moved to Brazil rather than remain under a Reconstruction government, died at Iguape, Brazil. McMullan was active in politics in Hill County before the Civil War and served as a delegate to the Texas Democratic convention in Galveston in 1860. After serving the Confederacy in Mexico during the Civil War, he joined William Bowen in a plan to take advantage of liberal Brazilian immigration terms and move a colony of 154 from north central Texas to South America. McMullan and Bowen left for Brazil in late 1865 to locate lands and decided on fifty square leagues on the headwaters of the São Lourenço River south of São Paulo. McMullan returned to Texas in June 1866. After a series of delays and misadventures, he guided the emigrants to colony lands before becoming terminally ill with tuberculosis. His colony is credited with introducing the moldboard plow and modern agriculture to Brazil. In addition, colony members established a Baptist church there and made major contributions to Brazil's educational system.