PUBLIC INSTRUCTION IN EASTERN AMAZON (BAIXO AMAZONAS) AND TAPAJÓS: DIFFICULTIES AND CHALLENGES OF THE FIRST PUBLIC SCHOOLS IN THE EMPIRE
Public Instruction, Education, Schools, Baixo Amazonas and Tapajós, Eastern Amazon and Tapajos
The present research deals with Public Instruction in the Empire period (taking the years 1827 to 1889 as its cut), specifically about the first public schools. It aims to know the history of its implementation in the region of Baixo Amazonas and Tapajós (Eastern Amazon), as well as the difficulties and challenges that exist in this process. The methodology consisted of the survey, systematization and use of works related to education such as Saviani (2013) and Ponce (1992), among others, and more specific information obtained from codices under the custody of the Public Archive of the State of Pará, from the Historical and Geographic Institute of the State of Pará and the virtual library of Brazilian National Library. Thus, it is a bibliographic and documentary research. As for the reference for the analysis, we are using Historical Dialectical Materialism since it is a period in which the process of consolidation of the capitalist mode of production in Europe and its expansion beyond the countries in which the bourgeois revolutions had triumphed had already been identified. From the theoretical assumption, some events of a political, economic and social nature, which directly affected the implementation of public schools in the region will also be correlated to the text, such as Cabanagem, the slave system, the economic cycles of cocoa and rubber, as well as the performance of several Presidents who governed the Province of Grão-Pará. The research reveals that the process of implanting public schools in the region now known as Western Pará, an area covered by the Federal University of Western Pará, started in the 19th century without, however, consolidating itself, facing several challenges that prevented its affirmation in this part of the Province. Colares (2005), for example, considers that such schools were fragile; a weakness that would only begin to be overcome with the arrival of the religious orders of the Catholic Church in the region, mainly that of the Franciscan Friars and that of the Missionary Sisters of the Immaculate Conception, which gave development and consolidated School Education in our region of study. Before that, several factors led to the failure of many attempts, as suggested by the studies by Damasceno (2017), Lombardi (2010) and Saviani (2015), as we can see throughout this dissertation.