Paedagogica Historica

International Journal of the History of Education

ISSN: 0030-9230 (Print) 1477-674X (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/cpdh20

Education and the historiography of

IberoAmerican independence: elusive presences,
many absences

Joo Paulo G. Pimenta

To cite this article: Joo Paulo G. Pimenta (2010) Education and the historiography of
IberoAmerican independence: elusive presences, many absences, Paedagogica Historica, 46:4,
419-434, DOI: 10.1080/00309230.2010.496372

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00309230.2010.496372

Published online: 18 Aug 2010.

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 Paedagogica Historica
Vol. 46, No. 4, August 2010, 419434

Education and the historiography of Ibero-American

independence: elusive presences, many absences
Joo Paulo G. Pimenta*

History Department, University of Sao Paulo, So Paulo, Brazil

Paedagogica
10.1080/00309230.2010.496372
CPDH_A_493164.sgm
0030-9230
Original
Taylor
402010
46
Professor
jgarrido@usp.br
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&
and
Article
Francis
Joo
(print)/1477-674X
Francis
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PauloPimenta (online)

This contribution analyses recent historiographical tendencies in research in the

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field of education at the time of the political emancipation of the former Spanish
and Portuguese colonies in Latin America. The article briefly presents the
complex educational scene in Latin America on the eve of the movements for
independence. Due to the revolutionary character of the process of independence,
it identifies educational history as one of the most significant absences in the
historiography of independence. Notwithstanding, education has certainly been
addressed by historians of education, mostly focusing on the colonial or
postcolonial period, while largely neglecting the two decades after 1808. This
indicates both the divide prevalent between historians of education and historians
of independence and the rather nationalistic conceptual frame of existing
scholarship.
Keywords: historiography; Latin America; independence; nineteenth century;
eighteenth century

In recent decades, the history of education has constituted a fertile field of investiga-
tion for historians, educators, sociologists, psychologists and other social scientists. In
different countries, and in line with different theoretical and methodological themes
and orientations, this field is characterised by a mixture of overlapping interests
between past and present, where education is viewed as an inescapable and, at the
same time, valuable dimension of social reality. However, for all its amplitude and
diversity, the history of education does not yet seem well consolidated when focused
upon determined historical contexts and phenomena for which, despite the silence of
scholars, it is capable of offering significant contributions for their comprehension.
This is certainly the case for the processes of independence from Iberian colonisation
in the first three decades of the nineteenth century in Latin America.
However, the historiography of Ibero-American independence processes has
always thrived, experiencing periods of renewed prestige over time. This is precisely
the current case: thanks to governmental and academic initiatives, the number of
studies on the process of political independence has grown rapidly. A growth which
does not ensure, necessarily, renovations (or innovations) of focuses, theories or
methods; and which has not yet been proven adequate in considering educational
themes with the attention they deserve.
Dealing with this historiographic situation, this article aims to diagnose a situation
of still incipient reciprocal dialogues, highlighting historiographic gaps and, at the

*Email:jgarrido@usp.br

ISSN 0030-9230 print/ISSN 1477-674X online

2010 Stichting Paedagogica Historica
DOI: 10.1080/00309230.2010.496372
http://www.informaworld.com
 420 J.P.G. Pimenta

same time, valuing the intellectual efforts made by many authors, which currently
continue to bear fruit for important research. First, I offer a brief overview of educa-
tional themes in the context of Ibero-American independence. Second, I present
historiographically relevant works related to these themes, with the intention of
reflecting upon the elusive presence of independence processes in educational themes,
as well as on the many absences of educational themes in the historiography of such
proceedings. Finally, I conclude by sketching a historiographic agenda that articulates
education and independence.

The colonial legacy facing a new scenario

The colonisation of American territories by Iberian monarchies, initiated between the
fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, created a novel, complex and dynamic historical
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situation. In this context, a multifaceted mixture of European and African matrices and
native realities affected social structures, cultural patterns and political relations. From
the beginning, the great range of Ibero-American diversity, distributed over a
multiplicity of spaces, gained exposure to practices and ideas that can be categorised
within the same analysis field: that of educational realities. The nature, objectives and
social emphases of these realities varied greatly. According to their particular status
and role, the inhabitants of Ibero-American colonies were taught to read, write, count
and pray; destroy and construct; survive, produce, explore, make profit, obey and domi-
nate. There were institutionally constituted spaces for some of these purposes, such as
schools of basic instruction, and the learning of arts and trades organised in guilds; these
spaces could be religious or secular, as well as state-based, clerical or private. Usually,
urban centres were better served by these establishments, but their radius of influence
frequently reached far beyond the urban world. In the same vein, educational institu-
tions exceeded the circles of social influence, although many of them were commonly
closer to well-positioned sectors of colonial and metropolitan hierarchies.
Spanish America had formal teaching establishments from the year 1502 onwards,
when its first convents and schools were founded in Santo Domingo. Other establish-
ments rapidly followed, such as the Dominican schools of Guatemala (1520) and
Mexico (1532), the Franciscan school of Mexico (1523), the Jesuit colleges of New
Spain (1574) and Chiapas (1685), the Havana school (1636), and the Seminary of
Leon and the Tridentino school, both in Nicaragua (1667 and 1680). Schools of basic
instruction also began to appear in many areas in the sixteenth century, as well as
some workers guilds. These guaranteed the teaching of arts and trades and frequently
followed attendance at elementary schools in urban centres (at least until the Bourbon
Reforms at the end of the eighteenth century). Literary and fine-arts academies would
be founded primarily in the eighteenth century, with the bulk of Enlightened Spanish
reformist politicians. At that same time, private lessons were given by teachers
contracted specifically to educate children of wealthy families.
Universities existed in Spanish America from an early stage, some originating
from the above-mentioned schools, others created specifically as institutions of higher
learning, the most important being those in Santo Domingo (1538 and 1540), in
Mexico (1551), in Lima (1551), in Crdoba (1613), in Chuquisaca (1623), in
Guatemala (1676), in Havana (1721), in Venezuela (1725), in Santiago de Chile
(1738), in Panama (1749), and in Guadalajara (1791). All of these were of a religious
character, and gave way to a scenario of intellectual development little affected by
critical thinking, at least until the eighteenth century, when precepts coming from the
 Paedagogica Historica 421

Enlightenment and European Reformism began to cohabit with scholastic parameters,

but without ever replacing them completely.
In spite of the transformations suffered by these institutions throughout the period
of Spanish colonisation, they were responsible for setting up a scenario of active
educational practices which involved diverse agents and social strata, and which
articulated with other less formalised spaces of teaching and learning. This scenario
was plainly in operation at the time of the political crisis of the Hispanic monarchy at
the beginning of the nineteenth century, and the processes of independence not only
did not destroy it, but also interacted strongly with it.
With very distinct configurations and emphases, the same phenomenon can be
observed in Portuguese America, albeit without universities,1 printing devices or news-
papers,2 or even a set of educational initiatives on a scale comparable with that of Spanish
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America. However, here as well, from the beginning, religious orders, the most outstand-
ing of which were the Jesuits, implemented schools not only with lessons of basic instruc-
tion, comprising writing, reading, arithmetic and religion, but also with superior studies
for the training of priests. This system operated together with municipal corporations,
brotherhoods and private teachers. Examples are the Jesuit colleges of Espirito Santo
(1550), So Paulo (1554), Salvador (1560), So Vicente (1568), Rio de Janeiro (1573),
Olinda (1576), Santos (1585), So Lus do Maranho and Belm do Par (1622), Recife
(1655), Alcntara (1716), Colnia do Sacramento (1717), Fortaleza (1723), Vigia
(1731) and Paranagu (1738). In addition to such schools, there were courses in basic
instruction and theology, and seminaries for specifically ecclesiastic training.
Portuguese America also realised various formal initiatives related to technical
teaching, such as the school of military architecture of Bahia and the fortification and
artillery lessons of Rio de Janeiro, both created in 1699. In the following century,
between 1711 and 1786, various scientific and literary academies were instituted, of a
more or less ephemeral lifespan, enabling new forms of literate sociability, production
and diffusion of knowledge which, after the expulsion of the Jesuits from Brazil in
1759, would be marked by a growing secularisation of education. In the same context,
various governmental measures connected to education, such as the creation of aulas
regias (classes instituted by the Portuguese crown), and the supervision of private
teaching initiatives, were intended to redesign a system that, until that moment, had
been primarily maintained by the Jesuits.
This situation would endure until the Portuguese Court was transferred to Brazil,
in the same year in which the Spanish monarchy began to collapse (1808) as a result
of a French military advance on the Iberian Peninsula. With the American continent
involved in a new statute in its set of Portuguese dominions, the condition of the
principal urban centres would be modified, including in terms of their educational
system. In 1808, in Rio de Janeiro, the Navy School and a school of anatomy,
surgery and medicine were created, and in Salvador, a school of surgery at the
Military Hospital. Three years later public libraries were opened in these cities, an
initiative followed by others such as the creation of a practical Chemistry laboratory
(Rio de Janeiro, 1812), and the foundation of a school of sciences, arts and trades

1The first two formal superior courses would be created in Sao Paulo and Olinda in 1827,
both of Law; until that time, the principle centre for university formation of the Portuguese
born in and/or rooted in America was the University of Coimbra.
2Whereas in Spanish America initiatives of the same nature dated back to 1533 and 1722,
respectively.
 422 J.P.G. Pimenta

(Rio de Janeiro, 1816), of a public school of music (Salvador, 1818) and of a Royal
Academy of Fine Arts (Rio de Janeiro, 1820).3 At the same time, Spanish America
would begin to count on new teaching institutions: the universities of Nicaragua
(created in 1812 with the modification of the Tridentino school), of Montevideo
(1816) and of Buenos Aires (1821), as well as the academy of arts in Havana (1818).
In 1808 the first printing press and the first journal of Portuguese America were
created in Rio de Janeiro.
Until this point, we have been referring to realities that directly affected only
very small percentages of the populations of the Spanish and Portuguese Americas.
In these societies illiteracy was the rule, and the direct impact of formal education
was indeed very low, although indigenous and mixed-race populations were every-
where supposed to attend catechetical instruction classes. This, however, neither
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diminishes the importance of understanding these realities, nor confines them to

purely institutional limits. As diverse scholars correctly point out, the colonial
universe of educational practices and ideas should be delimited by considering
lessons, schools, seminaries, universities and their agents, but also by studying a
great number of daily-life practices, such as the informal learning of languages, and
the exchange of habits between different cultures, spaces of sociability and world-
views, among others.4 They refer, then, to an appreciation of the history of educa-
tional realities beyond their formal institutional spaces, in light of a conception of
social history tout court, where they become part of a more complex picture of forms
of development and the reproduction of social life.
There are, therefore, an entire range of relevant phenomena which do not fit
perfectly into the formal framework of institutions, and which transcended the highest
strata of colonial societies. As the process of independence set in, these phenomena
became noticeable. The great convulsions that the Iberian empires would experience
in 1807 and 1808 would be responsible for alterations in traditional rhythms of devel-
opment in American educational realities, without yet immediately creating a
completely new scenario. It is precisely here that an enigma is found, which can be
formulated in two leading questions: What is new and what is traditional in the
universe of ideas and educational practices at this moment? What is the relationship
between these ideas and practices and other broader transformations, of which they are
not just consequences but also producers?
A resolution of this enigma should come from a critical appreciation of diverse
efforts at understanding the Ibero-American, colonial and national educational
realities carried out to date. Such an appreciation can produce a historiography that
consistently articulates education and independence.

Historiography and the creation of an independence interregnum

The primary intellectual conditions essential to the development of a historiography
that articulates education and independence are disclosed through the accumulation of

3The Academy would be officially inaugurated in 1826.

4Thais Fonseca, Histria cultural e histria da educao na Amrica portuguesa, Revista
Brasileira de Histria da Educao 12 (2006): 5473. Everywhere, to my knowledge, there
seems to be a certain idealisation of this author around the category of mestiagem (taken
from Serge Gruzinski), considered as universally capable of explaining the whole experience
of colonisation, but with little emphasis upon its radically conflictive dimension.
 Paedagogica Historica 423

a great number of works focusing on themes of education in eighteenth- and nine-

teenth-century America, and which offer excellent critical pretexts and a sound basis
for new research.
The historiography of education in Iberian America reveals a strong concentration
on the study of educational realities before and after the first two decades of the nine-
teenth century, thus creating a chronological hiatus which corresponds precisely to the
time of independence. A glance at the scholarship of the late 1980s and beyond shows
a growth in analysis of colonial societies in their educational dimensions, whereas
studies geared towards the first years of the independent nations had already been
numerically significant, and grew even more. However, questions related to education
between the two contexts disappear from the studies in most cases, or appear only in
a rushed or accidental manner.
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Noticeable differences in the quantity of studies across countries depend on the

distinct national historiographic traditions to which they are linked, as well as
the thematic and spatial preferences of their authors. Today, it can be said that the
history of education finds itself better consolidated in (and about) Mexico than in
(or about) any other American country, although a recent and high-quality produc-
tion has also focused on Brazil, Argentina, Chile and Venezuela.5 In fact, studies
now exist dealing with different moments of practically all spaces contributing to a
resetting of the many specific contexts of independence in terms of their educa-
tional realities.
It should also be stressed that the majority of studies focus on formal institutional
themes such as schools, colleges and universities with a still recent and incipient
tendency to value broader educational questions. A central point of my argument is
perceived here: these issues have merited the attention of scholars concerned more
with education than with independence; this being the case, their logical marks follow
this tendency, preferring those connected to the creation, modification and extinction
of educational establishments in detriment of those related directly to the process of
independence.
A first type of historiography of education where the theme of independence
arises is that of general works concerning these decades. Be it in religious or official
works, in those of primarily empirical focus, or those which intend to reconcile
empirical findings with a more theoretical approach to reality, or finally, in those of
sociological interpretation, what occurred with education in the middle of the
processes of Ibero-American independence tends to be merely mentioned and no
particular emphasis is laid on this subject.
Beyond this, the majority of these works have been conceived according to nation-
ally delimited spaces, from which an ideal projection is made towards the (colonial)
past, which results fatally in an excessively limited or even anachronistic appearance.
After all, it is not only the history of European colonisation in America that does not
fit well within strict regional limits, just as the very history of the American nations in

5For critical evaluations of some of these historiographies: Mary Vaughan, Primary Education
and Literacy in Nineteenth Century Mexico: Research Trends, 19681988, Latin American
Research Review 24 (1989): 3166; Marta de Carvalho, LHistoire de lducation au Brsil:
traditions historiographiques et processus de rnovation de la discipline, Paedagogica
Histrica 32 (2000): 909933; Adrin Ascolani, La historia de la educacin argentina y la
formacin docente: ediciones y demanda institucional, Revista Brasileira de Histria da
Educao 1 (2001): 187209; Cynthia Veiga and Thas Fonseca, eds, Historiografia e histria
da educao no Brasil (Belo Horizonte: Autntica, 2003).
 424 J.P.G. Pimenta

the nineteenth century should not renounce its framework of a more ample context in
which every sovereign political reality is, in a certain form, a crucial factor in the
existence of the other. Accordingly, a history of educational realities is not possible if
it does not observe this same logic of spatial delimitation of historical phenomena,
reconfigured precisely by the process of independence.
Either way, the existence of such works possesses an intrinsic value, as they intend
to articulate two distinct periods, something which is imperative to understanding the
process of independence; after all, they cannot be constituted in an analytical universe
separated from one (colonisation) or the other (sovereign nations). Some works even
focus on smaller periods, enabling a more accurate examination of the history of inde-
pendence.6 Beyond this, a great advance in specialised research in recent years has
contributed to a first approximation by scholars to areas with regional realities that are
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still not well known in terms of education, and which provide excellent elements for
the development of the field.7 There is also a noticeable growth in collective general
works, where the analytical set does not have pretensions of constituting a totality, but
only of providing pieces for the composition of a general scenario marked by specific
realities.8
6Francisco Larroyo, Historia comparada de la educacin en Mxico, 8th ed. (Mexico:
Porra, 1967); Antonio Barbosa, Cmo han aprendido y aprenden a leer y escribir los
mexicanos (Mexico: Direccin General de Educacin Primaria, 1968); R. Briquet, Instruo
pblica na Colnia e no Imprio (15001889), Revista Brasileira de Estudos Pedaggicos 2
(1944): 520; Tito Lvio Ferreira, Histria da educao luso-brasileira (So Paulo: Saraiva,
1966); Lauro de Oliveira Lima, Histria da educao: de Pombal a Passarinho (Rio de
Janeiro: Editora Braslia, 1996); Juan Ramos, Historia de la instruccin primaria en la
Repblica Argentina, 18101910, 2 vols (Buenos Aires: Peuser, 1910); Juan Vedoya,
Historia de la instruccin en la Repblica Argentina (Tandil: Universidad del Centro de la
Provincia de Buenos Aires, 1984); Amanda Labarca, Historia de la enseanza en Chile
(Santiago: Universitaria, 1939); Hernando Campos Harriet, Desarrollo educacional, 1810
1960 (Santiago: Ed. Bello, 1960); ngel Grisanti, Resumen histrico de la instruccin
pblica en Venezuela, 2nd ed. (Bogot: Iqueima, 1950); Luis Bohrquez, La evolucin
educativa en Colombia (Bogot: Publicaciones Cultural Colombiana, 1956); Fernn
Gonzlez, Educacin y estado en la historia de Colombia (Bogot: Centro de Investigacin
y Educacin Popular, 1979); Daniel Valcrcel, Breve historia de la educacin peruana
(Lima: Ed. Educacin, 1975); Reinaldo Murgueytio, Bosquejo histrico de la escuela laica
ecuatoriana (Quito: Editorial Casa de la Cultura Ecuatoriana, 1972); Rafael Reyeros,
Historia de la educacin en Bolivia (La Paz: Universo, 1952); Juan Speratti, Historia de la
educacin pblica en el Paraguay, 18121932 (Asuncin: publisher unknown, 1979); Lus
Gonzlez, Evolucin de la instruccin pblica en Costa Rica (San Jos: Imprenta Nacional,
1978); and Carlos Gonzlez, Historia de la educacin en Guatemala, 2nd ed. (Guatemala:
Jos de Pineda Ibarra, 1970).
7Jos Coutinho, Uma histria da educao do Esprito Santo (Vitria: Departamento
Estadual de Cultura, 1993); Regina Scheider, A instruo pblica no Rio Grande do Sul,
17701889 (Porto Alegre: Editora da UFRGS, 1993); J. de S Teles, Notcias histrica da
instruo na Provncia da Bahia (Salvador: EGBA, 2003); and Maria Luiza Marclio,
Histria da escola em So Paulo e no Brasil (So Paulo: Imprensa Oficial/Instituto Fernando
Braudel, 2005).
8Josefina Zoraida et al., Ensayos sobre historia de la educacin en Mxico, 2nd ed. (Mxico:
El Colegio de Mxico, 1985); Luciano de Faria Filho, ed., Educao, modernidade e
civilizao: fontes e perspectivas de anlise para a histria da educao oitocentista (Belo
Horizonte: Autntica, 1998); Pilar Gonzalbo, ed., Familia y educacin en Iberoamrica
(Mexico: El Colegio de Mxico, 1999); and Marcelo Caruso and Eugenia Roldn, eds,
Imported Modernity in Post-colonial State Formation: The Appropriation of Political,
Educational, and Cultural Models in Nineteenth-century Latin America (Frankfurt: Peter
Lang, 2007).
 Paedagogica Historica 425

Institutions, practices, agents and colonial educational projects have attracted the
attention of scholars for a long time, especially regarding basic instruction which, as
much in Spanish as in Portuguese America, was carried out within a great variety of
spaces and with diverse forms of institutionalisation; even so, its quantitative pres-
ence in the respective societies is still a difficult task. Equally little known is the
state of affairs after 1808, although many studies intend to consider the years imme-
diately subsequent to the political crises of the Iberian empires, still considered
colonial years. In the case of the Hispanic territories, the Mexican reality is the
most addressed, including the reform of 1786 which weakened educational initia-
tives controlled by teachers guilds and strengthened, by contrast, the power of
Ayuntamientos and of the Monarchy.9 In the case of Portuguese America, analysis
of equally reformist politics stands out, brought to fruition by the Marquis of
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Pombal from the time of the Jesuit expulsion (1759) and subsequent modification of
formal instruction in the Portuguese Empire, where aulas regias were only timidly
implemented in substitution of the former system.10 In either case, the preference

9Lus Chvez, ed., La educacin pblica elemental en la ciudad de Mxico durante el siglo
XVIII (Mexico: Secretara de Educacin Pblica, 1936); John Lanning, Academic Culture in
the Spanish Colonies (New York and London: Oxford University Press, 1940); Jos Mara
Kobayashi, La educacin como conquista: empresa franciscana en Mxico (Mxico: El
Colegio de Mxico, 1974); Dorothy Tanck, The Escuelas Pas of Mexico City: 1786
1820, The Americas (1974): 5171; Dorothy Tanck, La educacin ilustrada, 17861836
(Mexico: El Colegio de Mxico, 1977); Dorothy Tanck, La enseanza de la lectura y de la
escritura en la Nueva Espaa, 17001821, Historia de la lectura en Mxico (Mexico: El
Colegio de Mxico, 1988), 4993; Pilar Gonzalbo, Historia de la educacin en la poca
colonial: la educacin de los criollos y la vida urbana (Mexico: El Colegio de Mxico, 1990);
Bernardo Gallegos, Literacy, Education, and Society in New Mexico, 16331821
(Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1992); Pilar Gonzalbo, Educacin y
colonizacin en la Nueva Espaa, 15211821 (Mexico: Universidad Pedaggica Nacional,
2001); Adolfo Carretn, La instruccin primaria durante la dominacin espaola en el
territorio que forma actualmente la repblica Argentina (Buenos Aires: Consejo Nacional de
Educacin, 1939); Purificacin Gato, La educacin en el virreinato del Ro de la Plata.
Accin de Jos Antonio de San Alberto en la audiencia de Charcas, 17681810 (Zaragoza:
Diputacin General de Aragn, 1990); Jos del Rey Fajardo, Jesuitas, libros y poltica en el
Real Mayor Colegio de San Bartolom (Bogot: Publicaciones y Editores, 2004); and Luis
Martn and Jon Ann Pettus, eds, Scholars and Schools in Colonial Peru (Dallas: Southern
Methodist University, 1973).
10Antonio Andrade, A reforma pombalina dos estudos secundrios no Brasil (So Paulo:
Edusp/Saraiva, 1978); Laerte de Carvalho, As reformas pombalinas da instruo pblica (So
Paulo: Edusp/Saraiva, 1978); Guilherme P. das Neves, O seminrio de Olinda. Educao e
cultura nos tempos modernos (masters thesis, Universidade Federal Fluminense, 1984);
urea Ado, Estado absoluto e ensino das primeiras letras: as escolas rgias, 17591794
(Lisboa: Calouste Gulbenkian, 1997); Luiz Villalta, O que se fala e o que se l: lngua,
instruo e leitura, Histria da vida privada no Brasil, ed. Laura Souza, vol. 1 (So Paulo:
Companhia das Letras, 1998); Tereza Cardoso, As Aulas Rgias no Rio de Janeiro: do
projeto prtica, 17591834, Histria da Educao 3, no. 6 (1999): 10530; Teresa
Cardoso, As luzes da educao: fundamentos, razes histricas e prtica das aulas rgias no
Rio de Janeiro, 17591834 (Bragana Paulista: Edusf, 2002); and Rachel Wrege, A educao
escolar jesutica no Brasil colnia (Campinas: Unicamp, 2003).
 426 J.P.G. Pimenta

for dealing specifically with education and women, indigenous or technical instruc-
tion in general is of recent date.11
Studies that focus on the decades after independence also tend to mention the
process of rupture between colonies and metropolises, but in general start with the
political caesura of independence, indicative of the beginning of the construction of
national institutions; therefore, they tend to address independence far less than
research on the colonial period does. The topics are also diverse here, varying from
institutions and educational agents to doctrines, projects and drafts for national
systems of education, which, in all places, had to be implemented in the newly
independent countries.12 After all, the construction of a modernised state system,
together with the sovereignty of a national community of reference, could not
renounce favouring a teaching system in which the values of such a union are imputed
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11Maria B. da Silva, Educao feminina e educao masculina no Brasil colonial, Revista

de Histria 109 (1977): 14964; Pilar Gonzalbo, Historia de la educacin en la poca
colonial: el mundo indgena (Mexico: El Colegio de Mxico, 1990); Dorothy Tanck, Pueblos
de indios y educacin en el Mxico colonial (Mexico: El Colegio de Mxico, 1997); Luiz
Cunha, O ensino industrial manufatureiro no Brasil, Revista Brasileira de Educao 14
(2000): 89107; Leila Algranti, Livros de devoo, atos de censura. Ensaios de histria do
livro na Amrica portuguesa (So Paulo: Hucitec, 2004); Luiz Cunha, O ensino de ofcios
artesanais e manufatureiros no Brasil escravocrata (So Paulo: Edunesp, 2005); and Tereza
Cardoso, As bases da educao: as Aulas Rgias, a Academia Militar, as Aulas de
Anatomia, Revista do Instituto Histrico e Geogrfico Brasileiro 436 (2007): 15065.
12A central study is that of Carlos Newland, La educacin elemental en Hispanoamrica:
desde la independencia hasta la centralizacin de los sistemas educativos nacionales,
Hispanic American Historical Review 71 (1991): 33564; Andrs Lira, Las escuelas de
primeras letras en la Municipalidad de Guatemala hacia 1824, Anuario de Estudios
Latinoamericanos 3 (1970): 11740; Ernesto Meneses, Tendencias educativas oficiales
Mxico, 18211911 (Mexico: Porra, 1983); Mary Vaughan, Primary Schooling in the City
of Puebla, 182160, Hispanic American Historical Review 67 (1987): 3962; Josefina
Granja, Narrations and Knowledges at the Beginnings of Modern Schooling in Mexico,
Paedagogica Historica 43 (2007): 81937; Maria de Lourdes Haidar, Ensino secundrio no
Imprio Brasileiro (So Paulo: EDUSP, 1972); Maria Celi Vasconcelos, A casa e os seus
mestres: a educao no Brasil de Oitocentos (Rio de Janeiro: Gryphus, 2005); Luciano Faria
Filho, Carla Chamon and Walkria Rosa, eds, Educao elementar: Minas Gerais na primeira
metade do sculo XIX (Belo Horizonte: Editora UFMG, 2006); Mark Szuchman, Childhood
Education and Politics in Nineteenth-century Argentina: The Case of Buenos Aires, Hispanic
American Historical Review 70 (1990): 10938; Carlos Newland, Buenos Aires no es pampa:
la educacin elemental portea, 18201860 (Buenos Aires: Grupo Editor Latinoamericano,
1992); Carlos Stuardo, El Liceo de Chile, 18281831: antecedentes para su historia
(Santiago: 1950); Orin Renin, La educacin primaria en Chile, 18101953, 2nd ed.
(Santiago: Imprenta Universitaria, 1956); Gertrude Yeager, Elite Education in Nineteenth-
century Chile, Hispanic American Historical Review 71 (1991): 73105; Sol Serrano,
Quin quiere educacin? Estado y familia en Chile a mediados del siglo XIX, in Familia y
educacin en Iberoamrica, ed. Pilar Gonzalbo (Mexico: El Colegio de Mxico, 1999), 153
71; Ral Caldern, Esfuerzos para democratizar la educacin elemental de mediados del
siglo XIX: proyectos y logros en el departamento de La Paz, Estudios Bolivianos 6 (1998):
16380; Eve-Marie Fell, La construccin de la sociedad peruana: Estado y educacin en el
siglo XIX, Amrica latina: del Estado colonial al Estado nacin, ed. Antonio Annino, vol. 2
(Milan: Franco Angeli, 1987), 80921; and Daro Guevara, Vicente Rocafuerte y la educacin
pblica en el Ecuador (Quito: Casa de la Cultura Ecuatoriana, 1965).
 Paedagogica Historica 427

to citizens.13 A characteristic feature of this Latin American context was the mobili-
sation of some intellectuals who, in the initial years of formation of national states,
ardently believed that the education of the majority of the population was a basic
condition for national development; even though indigenous, impoverished and slave
populations could be excluded from, or only partially integrated into this project. In
the middle of the century, some policy-makers began to think in a different way, and
in many places it became clear that the priorities of stronger social groups were more
important than mass education.14
HispanicAmerican colonial universities have been studied repeatedly. The focus
of these works vary from purely institutional histories to analysis of doctrinarian and
curricular questions and of the formation of driving political forces, including
histories of political ideas.15 Some works relate directly to the role of these entities in
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13Eugenia Roldan, The Monitorial System of Education Civic Culture in Early Independent
Mexico, Paedagogica Historica 35 (1999): 297331; Ana Waleska Mendona and Jorge
Nunes do , A histria da profisso docente no Brasil e em Portugal: aproximaes e
distanciamentos, Revista Brasileira de Histria da Educao 15 (2007): 1130; Luciano de
Faria Filho, Scolarisation, cultures et pratiques scolaires au Brsil: lements theoriques et
methodologiques dun programme de recherche, Paedagogica Historica 39 (2003): 77999.
14Anne Staples, Educar: Panacea del Mxico Independiente (Mexico: Consejo Nacional de
Fomento Educativo, 1985); Gabriela Ossenbach, El concepto de emancipacin espiritual en
el debate sobre la educacin en la primera mitad del siglo XIX, Revista Brasileira de
Histria da Educao 1 (2001): 14359; Marta Irurozqui and Victor Peralta, lites y
sociedad en la Amrica andina: de la repblica de ciudadanos a la repblica de la gente
decente, 18251880, Historia de Amrica andina, vol. 5 (Quito: Universidad Andina Simn
Bolvar, 2003), 93140; and Ilmar de Mattos, A construo do imprio da boa sociedade, in
Educao no Brasil: histria, cultura e poltica, ed. Claudia Alves, Ana Mara Magaldi and
Jos Gondra (Bragana Paulista: Edusf, 2003).
15gueda Rodrguez, Historia de las universidades hispanoamericanas, 2 vols. (Bogot:
Instituto Caro y Cuervo, 1973); Jos Abel Salazar, Los estudios eclesisticos superiores en el
Nuevo Reino de Granada, 15631810 (Madrid: C. Bermejo, 1946); Jos Mata Gaviria,
Panorama filosfico de la Universidad de San Carlos al final del siglo XVIII (Guatemala:
Castaeda, vila y Ca, 1948); John Lanning, The University in the Kingdom of Guatemala
(Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1955); John Lanning, The Eighteenth-century
Enlightenment in the University of San Carlos de Guatemala (Ithaca and New York: Cornell
University Press, 1956); Idelfonso Leal, Historia de la Universidad de Caracas, 17211827
(Caracas: Universidad Central de Venezuela, 1963); Humberto Cuenca, La universidad
colonial (Caracas: Universidad Central de Venezuela, 1967); Alamiro de vila, Resea
histrica de la Universidad de Chile, 16221979 (Santiago: Ediciones de la Universidad de
Chile, 1979); Idelfonso Leal, Andrs Bello y la Universidad de Caracas, in Bello y Caracas.
Congreso del Bicentenario (Caracas: Fundacin de la Casa de Bello, 1979), 16588; Ivn
Jaksic, Academic Rebels in Chile, the Role of Philosophy in Higher Education and Politics
(Albany: State University of New York Press, 1989); Sol Serrano, Universidad y nacin:
Chile en el siglo XIX (Santiago: Editorial Universitaria, 1993); Batia Siebzehner, La
Universidad Americana y la Ilustracin: autoridad y conocimiento en Nueva Espaa y el Ro
de la Plata (Madrid: Mapfre, 1994); Maria Ligia Prado, Universidade, Estado e Igreja na
Amrica Latina, in Amrica latina no sculo XIX (So Paulo: Edusp, 1999); Juan Marchena,
Pablo de Olavide: el espacio de la ilustracin y la reforma universitaria (Sevilla: Junta de
Andaluca, 2000); Mara Clara Guilln, La universidad pblica en Colombia, 16231867,
Boletn de Historia y Antigedades 91 (Bogot: Academia Colombiana de Historia, 2004):
73766; and Mario Aguilera, Universidad Nacional de Colombia: gnesis y reconstruccin
(Bogot: Universidad Nacional de Colombia, n.d).
 428 J.P.G. Pimenta

the context of independence,16 granting vitality to a classic theme: could universities

have played a relevant role in the unfolding of battles for independence? Could they
be co-responsible for the politicisation of HispanicAmerican environments between
the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries? Finally, could the existence of these
universities explain, at least partially, the contrast of features between processes of
independence in Spanish America and Portuguese America, given that in the latter
there were no universities?17
I believe that the answer to such inquiries tends towards the negative, since, as
stated above, HispanicAmerican universities were traditionalist environments, little
affected by eighteenth-century European innovations in thought (which were also not
directly responsible for structural political changes in Europe); they do not seem to
have placed themselves in any frontal position in the political battles and civil wars
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observed on the continent from 1810. Finally, it must be noted that a formal compar-
ison between colonising processes in the Iberian Americas frequently ignores an issue
which is consistently more evident: it is not possible to separate SpanishAmerican
independence from PortugueseAmerican independence, as though they were parallel
isolated developments; on the contrary, a series of their specific characteristics is a
tribute to their having originated in the same political crisis, the peninsular war from
1808 onwards, and of the reciprocal demands which one process imprinted upon the
other.18
There is still a significant amount of scholarship that directly addresses educa-
tional themes in the context of independence: the resolutions of the constitutional
assemblies and parliamentary sessions in Cadiz, Madrid and Lisbon and their educa-
tional projects, the operation and disarticulation of teaching systems, the relationship
of important political figures with educational issues, and the consideration of
education in the different constitutions promulgated in the period, among others.
Nonetheless, set against the whole of historiography, these works represent only a

16Bernard Moses, The Intellectual Background of the Revolution in South America, 1810
1824 (New York: Hispanic Society, 1926); Daniel Valcrcel, Obra educativa de Bolvar y su
recibimiento en San Marcos (Lima: Universidad de San Marcos, 1974); Idelfonso Leal, La
Universidad de Caracas en los aos de Bolvar, 17831830, 2 vols (Caracas: Universidad
Central de Venezuela, 1983); ngel Almarza, Entre dos fuegos, in Ms all de la guerra.
Venezuela en tiempos de la independencia, ed. Ins Quintero (Caracas: Fundacin Bigott,
2008), 175211.
17The thesis by Jos Murilo de Carvalho concerning the formation of a dominant elite in the
Brazilian Empire goes in another direction. His idea is that one of the central elements of
cohesion which would have permitted the formation of the elite would be the affinity of its
ideological formation, acquired by studies realised in the University of Coimbra in Portugal.
We will not discuss here the pertinence of the idea (which continues to remain influential in
historiography), but simply point out that it attributes a decisive role to the university in the
concretisation of independence. Jos M. de Carvalho, A construo da ordem: a elite poltica
imperial, 2nd ed. (Rio de Janeiro: Relume-Dumar, 1996).
18Joo Paulo G. Pimenta, Brasil y las independencias de Hispanoamrica (Castell:
Publicacions de la Universitat Jaume I, 2007).
 Paedagogica Historica 429

minor group of studies.19 In recent years, however, there has been an increase in the
number of specialists who, after carrying out a detailed analysis of IberoAmerican
political life in the early decades of the nineteenth century, do not disregard the educa-
tional dimensions of the realities under focus, above all regarding what these dimen-
sions meant with respect to symbols, media and political culture in general.20 In such
a junction of references, one topic which stands out is that of the catechisms: texts
traditionally of a religious nature, utilised for the pedagogic transmission of Catholic
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19Antonio Salvadores, La instruccin primaria desde 1810 hasta la sancin de la Ley 1420
(Buenos Aires: Consejo Nacional de Educacin, 1941); Francisco Almada, La reforma
educativa a partir de 1812, Historia Mexicana, XVII (1967/68): 10325; Anita Almeida, A
repblica das terras na corte da Amrica portuguesa: a reforma dos estudos menores no Rio de
Janeiro (masters thesis, Universidade Federal de Rio de Janeiro, 1995); Paulino Castaeda
and Juan Marchena, Notas sobre la educacin pblica en Cuba, 18161863, Jahrbuch fr
Geschichte von Staat, Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft Lateinamerikas 21 (1984): 26582; Jerry
Cooney, Repression to Reform: Education in the Republic of Paraguay, 18111850, History
of Education Quarterly 23 (1983): 41328; F. Lozano y Lozano, El maestro del Libertador
(Paris: Ollendorf, 1913); Jaime Rodrguez, El nacimiento de Hispanoamrica. Vicente
Rocafuerte y el hispanoamericanismo, 18081832, 2nd ed. (Quito: Universidad Andina
Simn Bolvar, 2007); Armando Rojas, Las ideas educativas de Simn Bolvar (Barcelona:
Monte Avila, 1972); Eugenia Roldn Vera, The British Book Trade and Spanish American
Independence: Education and Knowledge Transmission in Transcontinental Perspective
(Aldershot: Ashgate, 2003); Dorothy Tanck, Las cortes de Cdiz y el desarollo de
la educacin en Mxico, Historia Mexicana 113 (1979): 334; Salvador Broseta Perales, La
cuestin de la instruccin pblica en el Trienio Liberal, in Bastillas, cetros y blasones. La
independencia en Iberoamrica, ed. Ivana Frasquet (Madrid: MAPFRE, 2006), 30926;
Ernesto Ypez, La educacin primaria en Caracas en la poca de Bolvar (Caracas:
Academia Nacional de la Historia, 1985); Alberto Echeverry, Santander y la instruccin
pblica, 18191840 (Medellin: Universidad de Antioquia, 1989); and Luis Pietro, Simn
Bolvar: Educator (Garder City: Doubleday, 1970).
20Among others, Simon Collier, Ideas and Politics of Chilean Independence (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1967); Marie-Danielle Dmellas, Linvention politique. Bolivia,
Equateur, Prou au XIX sicle (Paris: Recherche sur les Civilisations, 1992); Manuel Ferrer,
La formacin de un Estado nacional en Mxico (Mexico: UNAM, 1995); Pilar Gonzlez,
Pedagoga societaria y aprendizaje de la nacin en el Ro de la Plata, 18201862, in De los
imperios a las naciones: Iberoamrica, ed. Antonio Annino and Franois-Xaver Guerra
(Zaragoza: Ibercaja, 1994), 45169; Franois-Xavier Guerra, Modernidad e independencias
(Mexico: FCE, 1992); Vronique Hebrard, Le Venezuela indpendant. Une nation par le
discours (Paris: LHarmattan, 1996); Carmen McEvoy, De la repblica utpica a la repblica
prctica: intelectuales y artesanos en la forja de una cultura poltica en el rea andina (1806
1878), in Historia de Amrica andina, vol. 5 (Quito: Universidad Andina Simn Bolvar,
2003), 34787; Marco Morel, As transformaes dos espaos pblicos: imprensa, atores
polticos e sociabilidades na Cidade Imperial (So Paulo: Hucitec, 2005); Adriana Silva,
Processos de construo das prticas de escolarizao em Pernambuco, em fins do sculo
XVIII e primeira metade do sculo XIX (PhD thesis, Universidade Federal de Pernambuco,
2006); and Mark Szuchman, Order, Family, and Community in Buenos Aires, 18101860
(Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1988).
 430 J.P.G. Pimenta

precepts. These texts became political during IberoAmerican independence in order

to inspire the conversion of subjects into citizens.21
However, the subject that seems most capable of drawing the attention of histori-
ans of education towards independence, and possibly also of historians of indepen-
dence towards education, is that of the mutual method (or system) of teaching. Created
in the British Empire from the simultaneous (but not inter-articulated) pedagogic
developments and practices of James Lancaster and Andrew Bell, this method would
enjoy great prestige in almost all of Iberian America at the beginning of the nineteenth
century. In many countries, Lancasterian schools were established, favouring a
model that promised a disciplinarian form of mass schooling at a relatively low cost.
This set-up seemed a perfectly adequate synthesis for the newly formed American
national states, which needed to create communities of common interests and affirm
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the legitimacy of new regimes, and which were replete with economic difficulties. By

21Marta Irurozqui, La pedagogia del ciudadano. Catecismos polticos y elecciones en

Charcas, 18091814, Historias de las elecciones 5 (2002): 734; Javier Ocampo, Los
catecismos polticos en la independencia de Hispanoamrica (Tunja: Universidad Pedaggica
y Tecnolgica de Colombia, 1988); Eugenia Roldn, Reading in Questions and Answers: the
Catechism as an Educational Genre in EarlyIndependent Spanish America, Book History 4
(2001): 1748; Nydia Ruiz, Los catecismos polticos en Espaa y Amrica (17931814), in
Memoria, creacin e historia: luchar contra el olvido, ed. Pilar Garca, Miquel Izard and
Javier Lavia (Barcelona: Universidad de Barcelona, 1994), 21127; Dorothy Tanck, Los
catecismos polticos: de la Revolucin francesa al Mxico independiente, in La Revolucin
francesa en Mxico, ed. Solange Alberro, Alicia Hernndez and Elas Trabulse (Mexico: El
Colegio de Mxico, 1993), 6580; and Rafael Sagredo, Los catecismos polticos americanos,
18111827 (Madrid: MAPFRE, 2009).
 Paedagogica Historica 431

the middle of the century, however, this system had already been widely discredited
in most places.22
In addition to referring to a relevant theme and positioning independence and
education as inseparable dimensions of the same reality, studies on mutual teaching in
Iberian America possess great merit, as a whole, for going beyond the national limits
within which scholars frequently confine pedagogic realities. By prompting an
interaction between the British Empire and the Spanish and Portuguese Americas,
studies of the Lancasterian method indicate, with certainty, how the very study of
IberoAmerican independence processes should proceed, and offer a practical
demonstration of the viability of this procedure.
If we transfer our observation of the historiography of education to the historiog-
raphy of independence, we will see that this discipline learned long ago to recognise
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the premise that regional or national studies that closed themselves within these same
spaces were inadequate; but that is not to say that this understanding has become valid
based on the observation of educational realities which, I repeat, are still seldom
considered. This finding is even more unsettling when compared with a production
which, as we have just seen, is vast, varied and complex and which in part relates
directly to independence. The historiography of education has not yet impacted, in a
significant manner, on the historiography of independence.
I expound this argument on the basis of a persuasive indication: the almost
complete absence of educational themes in general histories of the IberoAmerican
independence process, which is customarily composed of repositories of syntheses of
specialised knowledge. We will use as an example four of the most important works

22Marcelo Caruso, New Schooling and the Invention of a Political Culture. Community,
Rituals and Meritocracy in Colombian Monitorial Schools, in Imported Modernity (see note
9), 277306; Luciano de Faria Filho, Walkria Rosa and Marcilaine Incio, Culture Politique,
Scolarisation et Pratiques dAppropriation: la Mthode Mutuelle dans le Minas Gerais (Brsil)
au XIXe Sicle, Paedagogica Historica 41 (2005): 699720; Rogrio Fernandes, A difuso
do ensino mtuo em Portugal no comeo do sculo XIX, in A escola elementar no sculo
XIX: o mtodo monitorial/mtuo, ed. Maria Helena Bastos and Luciano Faria Filho (Passo
Fundo: EdiUPF, 1999), 2544; Rafael Fernndez, Sumario sobre la escuela caraquea de
Jospeh Lancaster (San Cristbal: Universidad Catlica de Tachira, 1984); William Fowler,
The elite and the Compaa Lancasteriana in Independent Mexico, Tesserae: Journal of
Iberian and Latin American Studies 2 (1996): 81110; Claudina Lpez and Mariano
Norodowski, El mejor de los mtodos posibles: la introduccin del mtodo lancasteriano en
Iberoamrica en el temprano siglo XIX, in A escola elementar (see note 23), 4572; Eugenia
Roldn, The Monitorial System of Education Civic Culture in Early Independent Mexico,
Paedagogica Historica 35 (1999): 297331; Eugenia Roldn, Order in the Classroom: The
Spanish American Appropriation of the Monitorial System of Education, Paedagogica
Historica 41 (2005): 65575; Eugenia Roldn and Thomas Schupp, Bridges over the
Atlantic. A Network Analysis of the Introduction of the Monitorial System of Education in
Early-Independent Spanish America, Comparativ 15 (2005): 5893; Luciano Mendes and
Walquria Rosa, Culture politique, scolarisation et pratiques dappropriation: la mthode
mutuelle dans le Minas Gerais (Brsil) au XIXe Sicle, Paedagogica Historica 41 (2005):
699720; Jesualdo Sosa, La Escuela Lancasteriana. Ensayo historic-pedaggico de la escuela
uruguaya durante la dominacin luso-brasilea (18171825), en especial del mtodo
Lancaster, Revista Histrica 47 (1954): 1254; Dorothy Tanck, Las escuelas lancasterianas
en la ciudad de Mxico, Historia Mexicana 22 (1973): 494513; Abraham Tllez, James
Thomson, un viajero britnico en Mxico, Secuencia 27 (1993): 7184; Edgar Vaughan,
Jospeh Lancaster en Caracas, 2 vols (Caracas: Ministerio de Educacin, 1987); and Helosa
Villela, O ensino mtuo na origem da primeira escola normal do Brasil, in A escola
elementar (see note 23), 14576.
 432 J.P.G. Pimenta

of this type, developed at different moments and by proponents of strong and distinct
interpretations. In these interpretations, it is verified that, within their central themes
(the general state of colonies before independence, Bourbon reforms and their impact
in America, the crisis of 1808, the course of political battles, the economy, military
forces, international panorama, the role of clergy and the heritage that the process of
independence left its resulting national states) those of education did not deserve any
mention other than an occasional reference, such as the eighteenth-century Hispanic
American cultural panorama or that of the years following 1821.23 If we consider
more comprehensive collective works, available in various volumes, the situation is
not radically distinct.24 In recent bibliographic scales of the historiography of inde-
pendence, the mention of works dealing explicitly with educational themes is
extremely rare.25
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Just as the historiography of education created an independence interregnum,

the historiography of independence created a kind of educational interregnum. We
now see how the overcoming of one should by necessity lead to the overcoming of the
other.

Research perspectives for overcoming the interregnum

Why consider IberoAmerican educational realities in the early nineteenth century in
close relation to political independence? And why consider the process of indepen-
dence in its educational dimensions? The answer to both questions should lie in the
same assumption: the rupture of political ties with Spain and Portugal by the Latin
American colonies was a process of an eminently revolutionary nature. The enactment
of independence was thus capable of producing differentiated and unequal impacts in
almost all spheres of social reality. Between 1808 and 1822, it was not possible to
remain immune to these impacts, to defend transformations, reject them, fear them,
become familiar with them or, simply, establish parameters of action in a reality
which, every day, offered new challenges to the maintenance of traditional forms of
everyday existence.26
The source of these impacts is political, and the generalisation of politics in all
groups in society is one of the most profound legacies of independence, a distinctive
mark compared with the previous historic period. The final decades of the eighteenth
century experienced, throughout Iberian-colonised America, the take-off of public
spaces of discussion that over time became more complex and politicised. This is
clearly not to say that independence processes were being prepared or planned by men
and women who thought and acted politically in accordance with critical standards.

23John Lynch, Las revoluciones hispanoamericanas, 18081826, 8th ed. (Barcelona: Ariel,
2001); David Bushnell and Neill Macaulay, El nacimiento de los pases latinoamericanos
(Madrid: Nerea, 1989); Tulio Halpern Donghi, Reforma y disolucin de los imprios
ibricos, 17501850 (Madrid: Alianza, 1985); and Jaime Rodrguez O., La independencia de
la Amrica espaola (Mexico: FCE, 1996).
24Gustavo Beyhaut and Helne Beyhaut, Amrica Latina III: de la independencia a la
segunda guerra mundial (Mexico: Siglo Veintiuno, 1992); Leslie Bethell, ed., Histria da
Amrica Latina, vol. 3 (So Paulo: Edusp, 2001).
25A good example is found in: Manuel Chust and Jos Antonio Serrano, eds, Debates sobre
las independencias iberoamericanas (Madrid and Frankfurt: Iberoamericana, Vervuert, 2007).
26Istvn Jancs, Na Bahia, contra o imprio. Histria do ensaio de sedio de 1798 (So
Paulo: Hucitec, 1996).
 Paedagogica Historica 433

Quite the contrary: the actors showed themselves to be well adjusted initially to their
conservative European pairs, although these standards were continually challenged by
contemporary historic processes of subversion of the political and social order (some
of them even coming from the very American continent). It is simply about regarding
the dynamics of these spaces as indicative of an everyday and reiterative dimension of
independence as revolution, from which educational realities could not escape.
Following this premise, educational subjects do not arise as a mere appendix of a
broader theme: they become active elements in the very configuration of this constel-
lation, without which it is impossible to understand its complexity. When in 1808
American subjects of the king of Spain faced the situation, never experienced before,
of not counting on their traditional centre of loyalty, and when those of the queen of
Portugal, upon seeing their centre momentarily transferred to Rio de Janeiro, imagined
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what could occur without it, public spaces of political discussion were marked by
uncertainties, and daily life could not continue its course without suffering crucial
adaptations. From 1810 onwards, this scene became more complex each day. A multi-
tude of governments and powers, political projects and a variety of particular interests
began to cohabit side by side, creating cracks and opening up conflicts which in many
cases culminated in strong armed conflicts. In light of all of this, what occurred, then,
to educational realities?
The above-mentioned historiographic production only partially answered this
question and much scholarly work still remains to be carried out. It is necessary to
study, for example, the changing strategies of systems, institutions and educational
agents between 1808 and 1822, given the formation of provisional governments in
Hispanic (from 1809) and PortugueseAmerican (from 1821) urban centres. The
coexistence of actors, American and European claimants of national sovereignty,
drove Iberian empires into sharp conflicts that, independently from their original char-
acter, became revolutionary in that context. Not only provisional governments, but
also courts, assemblies, constitutions, laws and declarations of independence were
unable to completely ignore the educational realities. It becomes necessary to expand
the study of every IberoAmerican space and of the respective instruments facing
education, as well as the everyday behaviour of students, professors, families, legisla-
tors, publicists and other politicians.
Another important effort to be made is to understand the composition of spaces of
sociability specifically contoured by institutions and educational practices and their
insertion in the politicised public arena. Then, it would be possible to better
understand the relationships between teaching institutions and the formation of
commanding political forces and/or of highlighted performance in IberoAmerican
independence processes; the propagation of new ideological contents vis--vis tradi-
tional contents; the formation of broader social agents not necessarily linked to the
movement of politics of the era; and the social and political impact of schooling in
general. Until now, this theme has only been partially considered by biographers of
independent leaders, in contexts in which it is common to assess broader educational
training; in general, we know very little about who studied during independence, and
the significance (inclusion and/or social climbing, control of forms of production,
everyday survival, etc.) that their studies acquired in that context.
Familiarity with and an understanding of books, texts and other materials used
during independence in the various educational institutions and practices, as well as
of ideas and educational projects, also require historiographic efforts, preferably artic-
ulating material culture, daily life history, economic flows and networks of information,
 434 J.P.G. Pimenta

the history of ideas and political culture. In this last question, as we have seen above,
the advances of the past 20 years are notable, and provide an excellent point of departure
for studying educational realities which are still rarely considered.
Finally, I believe that none of this will permit a proper articulation of education
and independence if no effort is made to overcome national historiographic limits,
which still encompass the majority of historic studies, in American countries and
elsewhere. If the processes of independence in Spanish and Portuguese America are
specific and distinct phenomena, they are in this sense part of a historic totality, which
many contemporaries were plainly conscious of, and which future works should take
into consideration. Positioned in the middle of a complex system of relationships, not
only of an exchange of images and paradigms but also of reciprocal determinations,
educational realities emerged in the middle of IberoAmerican independence as
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another carrier element of a contradictory dynamic and became part of a broad

political reality. Considering this, the study of educational constellations may
contribute to outlining the history of IberoAmerican independence as a true social
history. These challenges affect both historians of education and historians of
independence and they indicate the need to join intellectual efforts that have hitherto
pursued separate paths. This envisioned future collaboration may result in a less strict
delimitation of the different fields of analysis, consequently favouring a more
adequate understanding of history.

Aknowledgements
I wish to thank Marcelo Caruso for his suggestions for this article. In addition, I wish to thank
Sarah Ribeiro Tortora for her support in carrying out the empirical research. The article was
translated by Patricia McGovern.

Notes on contributor
Joo Paulo G. Pimenta, PhD, is professor at the History Department of the University of Sao
Paulo (Brazil), and a visiting professor at El Colegio de Mxico (Mexico) and Universitat
Jaume I (Spain). His research focuses on the crisis of the Ancien Rgime, independence and
the formation of new states in Latin America, including issues of mutual perceptions and
mutual dependencies between Brazil and the new Hispanic American republics. Recent
published works include: A Corte e o Mundo (So Paulo: Alameda, 2008), and Brasil y las
independencias de Hispanoamrica (Castelln de la Plana: Universitat Jaume I, 2007).