In 1871 Robert Henry Riker (pictured below left, 1866) arrived in Santarem and bought land from the govern-ment of Pará. Riker, together with his brother Herbert, made the first rubber plantations in the Amazon. A curious detail is that decades later, the American industrialist Henry Ford tried to cultivate the plant in the same area, on the banks of the Tapajós river.
Robert Henry Riker was a railway entrepreneur in the United States and was in Fort Sumter, near the city of Charleston, South Carolina, when the first shot of the Southerners who started the Civil War was fired.Riker came to Brazil accompanied by his wife and 5 children (a nine-month-old baby died on the trip). For the aristocratic family, and a member of the high society of Charleston, living in a rustic area and where the neighbors were distant was undoubtedly difficult. The couple Riker still had a son here in Brazil, baptized Marlin Amazonas. However, the boy was born with deficiencies and had to be supported by the other brothers until the adult age.
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Mrs. Sarah Riker (pictured below right) and her children made trips to visit their homeland. According to Odete Guilhon tells us, Mrs. Riker never got used to the change of country and lived sadly her years in Brazil, dying, still new, in 1877. Four years later, Robert H. Riker lost his eldest son , Robert, only 29 years old. The older daughter Lilla married Charles Vaughan from another immigrant family and returned to the United States. The other sister, Virginia, followed the same path. The patriarch Robert H. Riker passed away in 1883.
However, his two sons David and Herbert continued the family business in the city. The farm in the Diamantino was sold by David in 1910 (in the photo below, the farm headquarters when still in the power of the family).
David and his brother Herbert Riker eventually became the administrators of the family assets after the death of their parents. After being widowed, David married a 19-year-old Santarém girl named Raimunda or Dona Mundica, with whom she remained until her death (in the photo right, David Riker is already old). The couple had 14 children.
David Riker (photo left) left a written account where he refers to the Wickham family, of English origin, who maintained a school in the city of Santarém. One of its members was Henry Wickham, known for taking the rubber tree seeds to the Kew Botanical Garden in London. They were then transplanted to Malaysia, where they were domesticated. This fact led to the collapse of rubber production in the Amazon in the early twentieth century.
David Riker was approached by American journalists interested in knowing the fate of the Confederates who came to Brazil. In 1941, James E. Edmonds of The Saturday Evening Post came to Santarem and met David Riker, living in a good house, which could easily be recognized by the American eagle trapped in the front holding the United States' America (photo below).
Inside a large family, described as friendly and cheerful. David introduced his wife and proudly said that she had given him 14 children, 11 of whom were alive. He recalled the old confederates who remained and were buried in the region, as in the case of David's parents and his elder brother.
David Rilker referred to the venture of the Henry Ford (Fordlandia) indus-trialist, where he worked as an interpreter and also directed the meat supply sector. David criticized the inadequate practices adopted by the famous entrepreneur and intended to change the life of the Amazonian caboclo, as well as the way the rubber plantation business was being remot-ely directed remotely.
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Realizing that the reporter was going to ask the question "Was it worth it?", David Riker replied, "I am glad to have stayed here.God has been kind to me.My children are considerate.Wife is kind and loyal.Nothing is missing How many can say the same. " David Riker passed away in 1954, at the age of 93. His wife, Dona Mundica, died in 1975, also at age 93!
David Bowman Riker, the patriarch of the Rikers and his family. The first, among many other confederates, to settle in Santarém. In the photo, Raimunda Ferreira da Silva (wife), grandson Pedro Rubim Riker Branco (behind) and great-grandson of the couple Walter Branco (at the front) appear, still alive. Record probably made between 1954 and 1957, in the residence of Bowman, in the neighborhood of Prainha. He was the grandfather of the former deputy mayor of Santarém Delano Riker, already deceased.
Reporting the death of Delano Riker Teles de Menezes, 60, vice-mayor of Santarém on March 13, 2008. Delano was much more than a politician in his life. He was a cattle rancher on the Amazon River floodplain; he was a pilot and owner of a regional airline; and Riker was a blood descendant of the American Confederates, called Confederados here. The patriarch was Robert Henry Riker, who ventured off from South Carolina to Santarém with his whole family in 1867. I understand that he was president of a railroad in South Carolina prior to the Civil War and that he was much better off economically than other Confederados coming to Santarém. His American wife, Sarah Elizabeth Hapoldt, died 10 years after arriving in the Amazon. Their six children born in the United States included David Bowman Riker, the last Confederate to die in the Amazon. Robert Riker married again and fathered several more children born here in Santarém. More coming up in the next blog post. Image, Delano Riker's coffin leaving the Baptist Church of Santarém.
DAVID BOWMAN RIKER OBITUARY
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David Bowman Riker, the last survivor from the group of Southern Confederates who, after the end of the fratricidal struggle that bloodied the powerful American nation for more than four years, came to settle in Santarem in 1867. With the victory of General Grant over General Lee, the rebel states headed by South Carolina had assembled a Confederacy in opposition to the United States. Many families of Southerners mostly composed of sugarcane and cotton farmers exchanged their country for other South American locations after the end of the War of Secession.
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It was on this occasion that the well-known American families whose descendants are intertwined in today's Santarem society were established in this city: Riker, Wallace, Henington’s, Vaughan’s, Jenning’s, Pitts and probably others whose names escape us.
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Arriving here at only 6 years of age, the boy David Riker, went with his parents and brothers to stay at Diamantino, south of the city, where his father prospered and, one can say, created the sugar cane industry and other crops. While growing up, David’s family became a symbol of work and honesty, a real patriarch in the true meaning of the word.
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He died at the age of 92, leaving a large number of descendants among his children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren.
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David Riker was married twice with the following children: Honorina Augusta, Maria America, Adelina Amelia, Antonia Davina, Jose Alvaro, Zenôbio, Nelson, Lauro, Maria de Lourdes, Roberto Henrique, Rubim, Otâvio, Mayflower, Fulton, Nora, Delmas, David and José.
His coffin covered with the flag of the United States had a great number of attendants at necropolis No. 9 in dos Martires, where it was buried.
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To be sorted out RESEARCH NOTES
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Monday, August 29, 2011
Scraps of History - Confederates in the Amazon - Pará
Posted by Vieira ajfontes on May 21, 2010
The American Civil War - Secession-1861 to 1865, Southerners are defeated by Northerners. Groups of Confederates, from the South, protest by leaving their home country. One of these groups decides to take over Brazil, Province of Pará, Santarém, Tapajós River, tributary of the Amazon, in 1867.
The Riker family, of German origin, headed by Robert Henry Riker, executive, former president of a railroad in the South, arrives with his wife and five children.The Rikers settled near the city of Santarém, 20 km away, on the right bank of the Tapajós River, near its mouth, on a rural property called Diamantino. Started by Robert, it became one of the most productive in the region, with livestock farming, short-cycle agriculture and a pioneer in the planting of Hevea Brasiliensis, a rubber tree, using the densification technique, 80,000 trees, corresponding to a native rubber plantation of 400 places. Latex was highly valued at the time, in 1890, and made David Bowman Riker, Robert's son, one of the most prosperous and respectable figures in the area.
David, a man of vision and a tireless worker, wants to transform the defeat of the Confederate Robert Henry Riker into great achievements. Honor Virtutis Praemium (Honor is the Reward of Virtue) is a Latin inscription on the gold scroll of the Riker family coat of arms, David's life proposal.
American immigrants had distinguished themselves in the Province of Pará through their work. The President of the Province, Dr. Francisco Maria Corrêa de Sá e Benevides, during the installation session of the Provincial Legislative Assembly on February 15, 1876, paid tribute to the Riker, Henington, Pitts, Wallace, Vaughan and Mendenhall families for their contribution to regional development.
David Bowman Riker died at the age of 92, lucid. Father of David Afton Riker, author of the book “The Last Confederate in the Amazon”, born in Pará, married to Mrs. Irene Carneiro Riker, father of Douglas Riker, co-worker at Shell-Sabbá in the 80s, in Manaus.
The Rikers dignified the patriarch Robert Henry Riker, a man of fiber, strong-willed, full of spirit, North American by birth, a native of Pará by adoption.
AJVieira
Placement – ​​the rubber tapper's workplace, the place had 200 rubber trees from which latex was extracted.
The Last Confederate in the Amazon (“I'm de last of de southern seed....)
David Afton Riker -1983
source: http://cafehistoria.ning.com/profiles/blogs/retalhos-da-historia-1
Posted by Gerardo "Von" at 00:27:00
24 comments:
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Alan Lemos said...
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David Bowman Riker was my grandfather's grandfather. A very beautiful story.
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Gerardo "Von" said...
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Dear Alan, good evening!
Do you have any more information about your family that you would like to send to be published and thus enrich the historical content of the blog?
If so, my email is gerardo.monteiro@gmail.com
Best regards -
Thiego Breno F. Riker said...
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Good Afternoon,
I am the great-great-grandson of Herbert A. Riker and David B. Riker. My great-grandparents were cousins: Sergio Adriano Riker, son of Herbert and Anna Souza, and Antonia Davina Riker, daughter of David Bowman Riker and Carolina Colares.
The patriarch of the Riker family, Robert Henry Riker, was actually a native of Savannah, Georgia, where he was born in 1824.
Robert was the great-great-grandson of Abraham Rijken Van Lent, the former owner of Riker's Island, New York.
Although his son, David B. Riker, in his manuscript, wrote that his father was born in Charleston, the census of the city of Charleston, from the year 1861, says that the great patriarch, was born in Georgia.
His wife was Sarah Happoldt, daughter of the German Jew Christian David Happoldt and Sarar Marlen, of Charleston.
My great-great-grandfather was not a military man - in fact we can say that he and his brother (David Rike) were war entrepreneurs. Many of their companies provided services to the Confederacy, according to receipts sent to me from the United States.
I am writing a book that tells the story of the Riker family in detail. I hope it will be published in 2012.
David Afton Riker, whom I had the opportunity to meet when he lived in STM, helped me a lot with information and advice.
He was my grandmother's uncle -
According to the Rector of the Equatorial Baptist Theological College, Pastor Dr. David B. Riker, PhD, says that his grandfather David Bowman Riker helped the Swedish missionary, Eurico Nelson, to establish Baptist evangelical work in Santarém, being responsible for the construction of the second Baptist Temple in Santarém.
Another piece of information is about the White SOLAR in STM -- in reality the name of such Solar should be Solar Riker -- since its owners were Honorina and America Riker --
Grace and peace
T. Riker -
riker said...
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We need to rescue the somewhat lost history of the descendants of the Rikers who left Santarém, such as those who went to the State of Amapá. I am one of them and I try to preserve the family name in my descendants. Here in Amapá the RIKER family is alive through ALBERTO RONALD SOUZA DA CRUZ RIKER, great-grandson of NEIVA RIKER PEREIRA, who recently passed away in Belém-PA.
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Thiego Breno F. Riker said...
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Hello!
Regarding the Rikers, I can say that our history is very well preserved, my dear relative. Aunt Neiva, who passed away, was the sister of Sergia Ana, Pai's mother.
I leave a link: coloniaperdidaconfederacao.blogspot.com
The Portuguese mistakes in the text are that I made very quickly and so I haven't had time to correct them yet. I am a member of the SCV. -
Ana Beatriz said...
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Hi, I'm Riker too and David Bowman Riker was my great-grandfather's grandfather. I always enjoy reading about my family.
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Unknown said...
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My father's name was Albino Pereira Riker, born in Icoraci in the state of Pará in 1906.
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Unknown said...
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My father's name was Albino Pereira Riker, born in Icoraci in the state of Pará in 1906.
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Unknown said...
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Excuse my ignorance, but weren't the Confederates great slave owners in the southern United States? Who tortured black people worse than animals? Just curious. If so, why preserve such a culture?
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Unknown said...
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Beautiful work about my Riker family. I am the daughter of Nestor Riker, son of Silvino Samuel Riker. If anyone has something bizarre about my family, please prove it. Otherwise, keep quiet and don't say what you can't prove.
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Unknown said...
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Hello, I'm from the Riker Family too. Beautiful story of our family.
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Gerardo "Von" said...
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It's not about preserving the "culture", at least the one you're referring to, but remembering and understanding where we came from and thus avoiding repeating the mistakes made in the past. That's all, my friend, no segregation, revenge or anything like that. Thank you!
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Unknown said...
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My name is Daniel dos Santos Riker and I would like to know more about the Riker Family History.
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Unknown said...
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My name is Daniel Riker Bastos, son of Maria Sueli Campos Riker, grandson of Renato Bentes Riker and Iracilda Campos Riker, and great-grandson of Virgílio Paulo Riker and Luiza Bentes Riker.
I have always been curious to know the family history, as well as the family tree, however I only have knowledge of the tree up to my great-grandparents. -
Andrea said...
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I was married to David Judson Riker Lages! My ex-mother-in-law Nora Magnolia Riker Lages is 102 years old! She has a lot of stories to tell!
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Unknown said...
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This is a beautiful story about our family... I am the granddaughter of Arthur Riker... who lived in Santarém.
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Unknown said...
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My name is Alan Lobato Riker, I was born in Santarém do Pará. I got this surname from my mother, who inherited it from her father.
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Sandro Fabricio Cruz said...
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Sandro Fabrício Cruz,
How can I get the book that tells the story of the Riker Family?
I am Neiva Riker's maternal grandson. -
Unknown said...
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I would also really like to get the book that tells the story... just like you, my cousin Fabrício Cruz... I am Neiva Riker's maternal great-granddaughter.
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Sandro Fabricio Cruz said...
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Good morning cousin! And what's your name?
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Rraick said...
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Hello. My grandfather's name was Albino Pereira, born in 1906 in Pará (I don't know the city) and died in 1987 (Manaus). His father was David, but I believe there was a problem with the registration because on the marriage certificate the name appears as David Raich" and on my mother's certificate it appears as "raique". My mother registered us as "Raick" (without knowing the correct spelling) at the request of my grandfather Albino in the death registry. My grandmother Joana Mendonça Pereira rejected the foreign name and none of my uncles have my great-grandfather David's surname. If anyone can help me with any information I would be very grateful.
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Rraick said...
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Hello dear ones.
My maternal grandfather's name was Albino Pereira "Raique". He was born in 1906 in Pará (I don't know the city) and died in 1987 (Manaus). On my grandfather's marriage certificate, the father's name is listed as "David Raich" and his mother's name is Luiza Pereira. However, I believe there was a problem with the registration, because on my mother's certificate it is listed as Albino Pereira "Raique". My mother registered us with the name "Raick" (without knowing the correct spelling) at the request of my grandfather Albino on his deathbed. The story is even funny, because my grandmother Joana Mendonça Pereira rejected my grandfather's foreign name and none of my uncles have my great-grandfather David's surname. I got here because my aunts talk about some of my grandfather Albino's sisters who live/lived in Santarém and would come to Manaus on vacation. I also have an uncle who was born in Santarém. And the only connection I found was with the Riker family due to the pronunciation of my name. If anyone can help me with any information I would be very grateful. -
Unknown said...
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Hello, my father was Neiva Riker's cousin. We have a cousin who lives in the Marco neighborhood in Belém, his name is John Riker.
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Sandro Fabricio Cruz said...
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Hello!
Your father was my grandmother Neiva Riker's cousin.
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CLARIFICATION / EXPLICATION
We clarify that due to errors made during the registration of births in the Santarém registry offices, several families of Confederate origin ( Wallace, Hennington, Rhome, Pitts, Riker, Vaughan, Jennings, etc. ) had their names registered incorrectly.
The VAUGHAN family , for example, assumed a few different forms of bookkeeping: Vaughon, Waughan, and Wanghon.
Recently, some descendants of the VAUGHAN family and other families, with the help of lawyers and following the family trees, made the necessary corrections in the local registry offices and began to write their names correctly.
Because the pronunciation of the name V AUGHAN is different from the way it is written, some descendants began to adopt the name “Von” , but only to make it easier to understand, without changing the way it is recorded.
We clarified that in terms of errors committed during the notary records in Santarém, in the records of births, several families of confederates (Wallace, Hennington, Rhome, Pitts, Riker, Vaughan, Jennings, etc...) had their names entered in wrong. The family VAUGHAN, for example, took a few different ways to book: Vaughon, Waughan and Wanghon. Recently VAUGHAN some descendants of the family and other families with the help of lawyers and following the tree, made the necessary corrections in notary places and began to write their names correctly. Due to the pronunciation of the name VAUGHAN being different from the way it is written, some descendants moved to adopt the name of "Von", but only to facilitate the understanding of reading, without changing the way of recording..
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The Rikers
How one Confederate family never surrendered and rebuilt their lives in Brazil.
Nov 13, 2022
3
Crushed. Defeated. Humiliated. The Confederate States of America had wagered their blood, sweat and treasure on a bid for independence and failed. Now they would have to endure the unendurable: submission to “Yankee” rule. Most would pick up the pieces and put back together some semblance of ante-bellum life, rebuilding within the confines of a system they hated. But a small few would refuse to submit to the very end. These men and women would choose self imposed exile rather than humiliation. Many would flee to Brazil, where slavery was still legal and Emperor Dom Pedro II was more than happy to offer land grants, hoping to turn Brazil into a cotton exporter.
Robert Henry Riker
Robert Henry Riker was a sugar plantation owner and rail baron living in Charleston, South Carolina during the Civil War. He and his brother, David Riker, had also owned a large factory in Rikersville, an industrial town south of Charleston, which was likely filled with his employees. The war of course, naturally altered the trajectories of their lives. Robert was a great enthusiast for the war, and he used his resources to help construct an ironclad floating cannon battery to assault Fort Sumpter which he would participate in. Afterwards, it does not seem that he or his male children participated in any other major conflicts of the war. During the war, the hospital of Rikersville was appropriated for use as a prison camp for Union POWS. (In?)auspiciously the brother in law of Abraham Lincoln, Dr. George R. C. Todd, looks to have served as a doctor there. At the war’s end, Robert and his brother David would take their families and what wealth they had left and flee to Brazil, settling in the Amazonia region. He would die a several years later and would be buried in Santarém, Pará, Brazil. Robert would leave behind a thriving plantation estate. It would grow sugarcane and coco, had its own distillery and sawmill. He had a great family manor built, with door handles of porcelain.
David Bowman Riker
David Bowman Riker was the fifth child and third son of Robert Henry Riker. He was born in Charleston, SC in 1862, in the early phases of the war. When his father took him to Brazil, he was a six year old boy. Unlike many of his siblings, who would eventually repatriate to the United States, David was firmly rooted in Brazil.
He took to managing the great estate his father had left him with his brother, and even pioneered rubber tree planting turning a handsome profit before markets crashed. He would take as his second wife a native Brazilian, Raimunda Ferreira da Silva, a relation of the city mayor, with whom he would have 17 children, most whom would make it to adulthood. Despite being a young boy when he left the shores of South Carolina, he still spoke with a strong South Carolina accent which he passed on to his descendants. That was likely no accident, as he was still a proud Southern Patriot at heart. To him “Yankee families,” had flooded the South and ruined it. The pace of life in the United States was simply too fast paced for a man of antebellum heritage and Brazilian upbringing. He preferred slower pace of the Amazon. His children seemed to scatter across the hemisphere. Some following the course of their aunts and emigrating to the United States. Others would follow the path of their father and remain in Brazil. He would live to the ripe old age of 91. Buried in Santarém, he would ask that an American flag be placed over his coffin.
Mayflower Riker De Menezes
Mayflower Riker was born to David Riker and Raimunda Ferreira da Silva on March 8, 1912. One of the innumerable children born to David Riker, she led a relatively uneventful life. Unlike several of her siblings, she chose to remain in the Amazon and lived out her life in Santarém. She would marry Irapuan Teles De Menezes, a native Brazillian and bore at least two sons: Delano Riker Teles de Menezes and Dorian Riker Teles de Menezes.
Dorian Riker Teles de Menezes
Dorian Riker Teles de Menezes was born on June 24, 1945. He would move away from Santarém, Para and make his way east to the Brazilian state of Maranhão were he would embark on career in government and finance. He would work for the Bank of Brazil rising through the ranks over the course of a 30 year career to oversee operations over the entirety of the state of Maranhão as State Superintendent. During this time, he would find himself involved with local and state government. He would at various points be Chief of Staff of the Municipality of Imperatriz and State Deputy at the Legislative Assembly of Maranhão. During his stint in the state legislature of Maranhão, he was leader of the government and chaired several commissions, including commissions of Inquiry. Dorian is still alive and seems to live a semi-retired life outside of finance and government with his wife Maria Ivani Brasil de Menezes. He has four children and eight grandchildren.
Delano Riker Teles de Menezes
Delano Riker Teles de Menezes was born in 1946. Like his now long line of predecessors, he would set down roots in Santarém. Over the course of his 60 years, he would become a dedicated public servant. He would become vice-mayor of Santarém and work other offices such as Secretary of Agriculture for the Municipality of Santarém. In addition to his duties in local government, Delano was a major businessman. He owned a regional airline and just like his great-grandfather, derived a living from the land as a cattle rancher. He died in 2008.
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