The South is My Country movement includes three stars which represent Paraná, Santa Catarina and Rio Grande do Sul. On 1 October 2016, Plebisul - an unofficial referendum - was held. Voters were asked if they wanted to secede from Brazil, forming a new country with the three states. A total of 616,917 votes (which represents less than 3% the number of registered voters in these states) were counted according to the organizers of the ballot, 95% voting "yes". They were hoping to reach up to a million votes throughout the three Brazilian states. Some academics claim that the movement bases its separatist claims in
American River of the Lakes) which may or may not have been an error, as in those times the area of the Central Valley surrounding the American River was home to vast marshes, which would have given the river the appearance of a series of lakes. During the 1820s, Jedediah Smith led an expedition to the American River with the goal of finding a safe route across the Sierra Nevada. After a failed attempt to cross the mountains via the South Fork of the American River, Smith's group managed to cross via Ebbetts Pass on the headwaters of the Stanislaus River, becoming