Repercussions of the Empire in the Portuguese education (1906 - 1951). Breaking new ground in a little-explored field ^{2 3 4 5}

Abstract

Repercussions of the Empire in Portuguese Education (1906 to 1951). Breaking new ground in a little-explored field, this text addresses the question of the image of the colonies and the colonized in the context of Portuguese education (1906 to 1951) through Portuguese textbooks and a manual to teach indigenous Angolan children. The latter was edited in two moments - we suppose at the beginning of the Republic and in re-editions during the Dictatorship. We used materials referring to the first colonial exhibition in 1934 and the 1940 Portuguese World exhibition. The work is situated in the perspective of postcolonial studies, attempting to re-read colonialism in Portuguese education. We used heterogeneous sources and raised some questions to point out that much is yet to be studied.

Keywords
Portuguese colonial Empire; colonialism in school education; colonial exhibitions; autochthonous languages; bilingual textbooks

Resumo

Reflexos do Império na educação portuguesa (1906 a 1951). Desbravando um campo pouco explorado aborda a questão da imagem das colónias e do colonizado no contexto da educação portuguesa (1906 a 1951), através de manuais escolares portugueses, em que um manual foi editado para ensinar crianças angolanas indígenas. Este último foi editado em dois momentos – supõe-se que no início da República, e em sucessivas reedições, durante a Ditadura. Recorrereu-se a materiais referentes à 1ª exposição colonial de 1934 e à exposição do Mundo Português 1940. O trabalho situa-se na perspetiva dos estudos pós-coloniais, no que procura fazer uma releitura do colonialismo na educação portuguesa. Foram usadas fontes heterogéneas, e o trabalho representa apenas um levantar de questões a apontar o muito que há a estudar.

Palavras-chave
Império colonial português; O colonialismo na educação escolar; Exposições coloniais; Línguas autóctones; Manuais escolares bilíngues

Resumen

Reflejos del Imperio en la educación portuguesa (1906 - 1951). Abriendo nuevos caminos en un campo poco explorado,trata la cuestión de la imagen de las colonias y los colonizados en el contexto de la educación portuguesa (1906 a 1951), a través de los libros de texto portugueses,en los que se editó un manual para enseñar a los niños angoleños indígenas. Este último fue editado en dos momentos – suponemos que al principio de la República, y en sucesivas reediciones, durante la Dictadura. Recurrimos a materiales referentes a la 1ª exposición colonial de 1934 y a la exposición del Mundo Portugués 1940. El trabajo se sitúa en la perspectiva de los estudios poscoloniales, en lo que se intenta una relectura del colonialismo en la educación portuguesa. Se utilizaron fuentes heterogéneas y el trabajo representa sólo un planteamiento de preguntas para señalar el camino de lo mucho que hay que estudiar

Palabras clave
imperio colonial portugués; colonialismo en la educación escolar; exposiciones coloniales; lenguas autóctonas; libros de texto bilingües

Introduction

When Brazil celebrates 200 years of independence and closes the liberation cycle of the Americas, we intend to examine the rough sea of representations about colonization, the colonized, and their repercussions on Portuguese education. We will approach the issue of the image of the colonies and the colonized in the Portuguese education context through the school manuals used in Portugal and a manual to teach African children. We consider two specific moments – the start of the Republic and the 1930s and 1940s – when the colonial exhibitions are held. In this case, we analyzed the materials of the colonial exhibitions from 1934 and 1940. Amidst World War II, the great colonial exhibition of 1940 celebrated the centenaries of Portugal's formation (1141) and its independence from Castile in the 17^th century (1640). We used heterogeneous sources. Thus, this is not a systematic and exhaustive study. Moreover, we intend to raise questions and point out gaps in the area from a postcolonial perspective. However, historians should not only announce a certain theoretical perspective: it is important to clarify from where one speaks so readers can perceive their positions because the critical analysis can be affected by the everyday thoughts of their life context. Therefore, it is vital to historically and culturally contextualize colonialism and its fundaments, as it is inserted in the European ideals of the time about the indigenous people and establish the thought of previous and current historians.

Portuguese colonialism in the European context

At the time of the Maritime Exploration, the cosmic importance of this adventure hid from European eyes the emerging colonialism. Later, this same Europe also had a great interest in hiding, as a whole, this colonialism

(Lourenço, 2014)

The celebration of independences is a moment of identity affirmation, aiming to strengthen the inner bonds of the Nation and, simultaneously affirm them in their relations with other peoples. These are also moments to revisit actors, times, and places of social memories in their different asymmetries.

In the middle of the Dictatorship and the World War II context, the celebration of key dates of Portugal affirmation as an independent country from Castile, recognized among the European nations, is paradigmatic under various aspects, be it the internal messages internally displayed for the opposition to the regime or the imperialist fight abroad: the affirmation of a pluricontinental national identity, the dissemination of its civilizing action, the extension, richness, and diversity of the colonial domains, expressed in the Great Colonial Exhibition of the Portuguese World in 1940. At the same time, the Dictatorship polarized the defense of this colonial world as an essence of nationalism and patriotism. This aspect is inserted in the national political tradition of Monarchy and Republic.

The 1940 Exhibition was the last in a series of great colonial exhibitions held by several European countries since the 19^th century. With it, the government aimed to exorcise its fragility before the European center and its expansionist movements toward Africa, according to the Berlin Conference (1885), which regulated the effective possession of African territories. In the Portuguese case, the vast Empire, built since the 15^th century, lasted until the end of the 19^th century, except for Brazil, which reached independence in the early 19^th century, and India and the East, where the British, Dutch, and French had already substituted Portuguese conquest and occupation of territories.

Since the beginning, the miscegenation of the Portuguese with the local population was promoted in the territories conquered in India. However, the Europeanized population was scanty compared to the Indian one. The Portuguese administration continued in small commercial enclaves (Goa, Daman and Diu, Dadra and Nagar-Aveli). In the East, there were also the trading post of Macau and the territory of Timor in the Indonesian sea. The power, extension, and longevity of the Portuguese Empire were not perceived in the same way by all the Portuguese society. Brazil, which appeared to the West as an unknown New World, hosted large immigration waves, effectively delineating the territory of the colony and independent Brazil. The colonization and exploitation of its vast regions fixated populations that kept relational and commercial bonds with the metropole (Alves, 1994). The other parts of the Portuguese Empire did not attract mass emigration and were kept by a limited bureaucratic-military apparatus and a religious characteristic (Boxer, 1992).

With the Enlightenment, Portugal emerged as one of the leading countries to take initiatives to limit slavery but only in the metropole. Dated from the 18^th century, the law of the Marquis of Pombal (1761) prohibited the arrival of enslaved people in Portugal. Since 1763, the free-womb law determined that children from enslaved people would be born free. These laws were only restricted to the metropole. In the early 19^th century, some European countries abolished slavery and its traffic in their colonies (the Netherlands in 1821, England in 1807). In Portugal, the first decree was from the Marquis de Sá da Bandeira, from December 10, 1836, forbidding slave traffic to the South of the Equator. Only in 1869 was traffic abolished in all Portuguese territories. However, the gradualist theory of slavery ending (Silva, 2012) prevailed in colonialist Europe in the 19^th century, more dictated by the economic interests of colonial exploitation than philosophical principles.

The gradualist theory, defended by liberals, opposed the immediate abolition of slavery, defended by American and English abolitionists, based on feelings of compassion, people's natural rights, and religious mission, which led to great civil activism. The positivist current, which had great believers among the Portuguese elite in the late 19^th and early 20^th centuries, saw slavery as a phase of the evolution process of the peoples (Stuart Mill, 1861, quoted by Silva, 2012), supporting the gradualist position of abolitionism. According to Cristina Silva (2012), based on the same feelings, European neoliberal thinkers created arguments based on natural rights, which highlighted tensions between human rights when opposing freedom, equality, and the right to property. The abolition of the slave trade against the interest of colonial societies based on the slave trade. The solution shared in Europe was slave abolition in phases. The Berlin Conference (1884-1885) legitimized the occupation process of the colonial powers, imposing the duty to “civilize” ⁶ the subjected populations. With the end of slavery traffic, slave work was substituted by forced labor, legitimated by the definitions of the indigenous statutes. Under this perspective, the colonizer had an obligation to prepare enslaved people for freedom through education because, as they were roughed by slavery, they ignored the obligations and duties of the free men. Enslaved people were seen as lazy, incapable of ruling, obeying, and voluntarily dedicated themselves to work. Power was needed to force them to learn obedience, to accept the submission to the will and govern of others until they could reach the stage of submission to the government of laws. The immediate abolition was considered socially dangerous (Silva, 2012). The abolition of slavery in the Portuguese Empire was only declared in 1869, a century after the first measures. However, there was a certain continuity in the practices because the indigenous laws in all colonial empires sanctioned forced labor.

The European scientific missions to the Americas in the 18^th century and later to Africa made the territories and their richness known, presenting them as places to explore and whose populations, described as "savages" or "primitive," would be guided "toward civilization." The geographical societies – Societé Geographique de Paris, 1821; Gesellshaft für Erkunde zu Berlin, 1828; Geographical Society of London, 1830; Imperial Russian Geographical Society, 1845, Sociedade de Portuguesa de Geografia, 1875⁸ supporting imperialist disputes in the 19^th and 20^th centuries. In the 1884 Berlin conference, which finished these disputes in the 19^th century, the principle of “effective possession” of colonial territories (conquest, subordination) was affirmed, contraposing the historical right of maritime discovery.

At the end of the 19^th century, feeling the foreign threat over African colonial domains, Portugal also held study and recognition expeditions under the power of the Sociedade Portuguesa de Geografia and the support of the government at the time. The little investment in the colonies was criticized by some opinion-makers and translated in the ironic and sharp pen of Eça de Queirós (1890) in the work "Uma campanha alegre.”⁹

Our colonies are original in this sense: the only reason they are our colonies – is that they do not lie in the Beira. Because they provide us with no revenue: we do not provide them a plan of improvements: it is a fight…of abstention!...all that lives there…in a very ancient routine: and the only movement is from the foreigner that, in fact, explore them – though we have them as a right.

(pp.115)

The exploration travels of Roberto Ivens and Brito Capelo, and Serpa Pinto¹⁰ originated written and printed reports with ethnographic data about the social and geographical structure, the weather, flora, and fauna. These reports made the territory known, showing exploration possibilities and the exotic and primitive ways of living – for Europeans- which reinforced the idea of missions and the civilizing actions of European societies. Referring to the Coillard family, Serpa Pinto praises French missionaries he met during his troubled voyage.

The before-mentioned Portuguese expeditions occurred in the context of European scientific missions of recognition in inner Africa, such as those of Livingstone, initially with a missionary intention and, later, to serve the British government. The Portuguese campaigns of “pacification” in Angola, in the Cuamato region (Santos, 1958), and in Mozambique, leading to the imprisonment of Gungunhana (Fraga, 2009), aimed to occupy and effectively dominate the peoples from these regions, delineating the frontiers according to the Berlin Congress resolutions. All these actions increased the Anglo-Portuguese tensions over the "pink map" project, resulting in the English ultimatum to Portugal in 1891, and intensified Portuguese nationalism. The danger of attack on colonial territories determined the diplomacy effort of the republican government to include Portugal in World War I to guarantee the coveted possession of the colonies under Portuguese rule. This was enacted in the Paris Peace Conference when the Treaty of Versailles was signed in 1919, which guaranteed Portugal a place as a founding member of the League of Nations. The League did not reach the international stability desired, but Portugal adopted a neutral position regarding the new imperialist conflict that soon emerged.

The new international order resulting from World War II, leading to different processes of independence fight in the colonies of other colonial powers in Africa and Asia, triggered the beginning of the armed fight for independence in Portuguese colonies in the 1960s, which significantly increased Portuguese presence, both through the military and emigration. However, the Portuguese enclaves in the Hindustan peninsula – Goa, Daman, and Diu – were annexed by the recently independent "Union of India" in 1961. Dadra and Nagar-Aveli had already been occupied in 1954.

Repercussions of the colonizer condition in Portuguese education

Until the 1970s, Portugal continued to see itself as a "great Nation" going from Lisbon to Timor, as was taught in Geography classes in schools and the State propaganda disseminated to all adults and children. As Reis Torgal (1996) highlights, during the Monarchy, the 1^st Republic, and the Estado Novo, the message diffused by the school was always the history of expansion and colonization as a civilizing mission, valuing the richness of the occupied new spaces, presented as "spaces with Portuguese presence"(Torgal, 1996, p. 369), hence extensions of the Nation.

Going from Minho to Timor, Portugal was inhabited by many races and peoples to whom civilization and Christianity should be taken. They were presented in the school books as "primitive" peoples, which few drawings represent as semi-naked, whom the Portuguese had to bring to civilization, removing them from barbarism. In the official discourse after World War II, we perceive nuances aiming to portray a pluriethnical nation, more than actually to combat racism. Portugal was a nation established by many peoples, all of them Portuguese, united by language and religion. In reality, racism existed and was tolerated under, not always subtle, forms.

Brazil was presented as a great brotherly nation, which earned its independence due to the lack of diplomacy from the liberals, the imprudence of the young crown prince, and English interests and hidden diplomacy. This single version of history "was convenient to the Nation" in the late 1950s, being presented and instilled in the population with a pleiad of heroes and exemplary patriotism.

Figure 1
Map of Portugal, Islands, and Colonies present in Portuguese primary schools in the 20th century.

In high school, then called liceu, other sides and meanings of colonization started to appear. For instance, Zurara’s chronicle showed the cruelty of slavery. Positivist history, with remote and close causes, allowed us to put into perspective the political, economic, and religious arguments. Contrary to expectations, some young people positioned themselves against racism, colonial war, and colonialism.

However, from a critical perspective, we recognize that the "voice of the Empire", based on the legacy of a long colonial, hegemonic, white, European, civilizing, and Christian culture, is present in Portuguese historiography, which questions itself and dialogues with other viewpoints. We are not saying that the historical narrative is subjective because it is shown from one place. On the contrary, to be rigorous, it is delineating a whole field of significations and cultural representations that structured people and generations and, regarding which historiography is being questioned, seeking a more complex understanding of reality that contributes to change. Today, empowered by different methodological contributions brought by History, Geography, Sociology, and Anthropology and the vigilance we must have over our convictions, we can cross viewpoints, develop plurinational and multidisciplinary teams, scrutinize and understand our common heritages, differences, and unequal relations between classes, states, and geopolitical regions. Only through rigorous knowledge can we build credible explanations of the historical process and its reverberation in the present, thus, overcoming past traumas and moving away from the easy temptation of demonizing or mythologizing.

If on the one hand, there are Portuguese and Brazilian studies about education in colonial Brazil, which shed light on the slow progress of schooling; on the other, the historiography of Portuguese education has had little interest in the theme regarding the other colonies¹¹. Only recently, at the end of the 20th century, there are some works (Nóvoa et al., 1996)¹² started to be developed on this theme. For the countries that became independent, what is at stake is also the use of a vision of history to affirm a new political and identity legitimacy, as Reis Torgal (1996, p.371) pointed out.

The theme of colonial education is a field to be explored but has not been placed as a priority. Furthermore, the colonial issue is still a sensitive and painful theme for many people in Portugal who lived through the colonial war. In its turn, we see on a political level and in social communication media some attempts to whiten the Dictatorship period and colonialism in Portugal. The materials we have identified allowed this first approach, little systematized, about the perspective of colonial education that needs to be seen in its roots, with a long missionary tradition of political, philosophical, religious, and scientific discourses, which served a political domain of assimilation but also the meeting of cultures. An unequal meeting, marked by conquest, exploitation, and slavery, legitimized by international treaties and laws, religious and scientific beliefs. Nevertheless, it was also a meeting of peoples and inter-subjectivities, not only confrontations.

Portuguese political and educational context until the 20^th century

Portuguese maritime expansion was an enterprise guided by the Crown, followed by different forms of settlement and organization involving the nobility and the organized participation of the clergy and the people. To take possession of a territory involved stating the royal authority and, simultaneously, attributing to the clergy the jurisdiction to govern the souls, according to the right of patronage. This included the religious services and missions where there were different peoples, such as on the African coast, Brazil, and Asia and the king's appointment of bishops for these regions. We will not deepen these issues, but we highlight the inseparability of religious management from political-military, economic, and settlement questions.

In the case of Brazil, the Jesuit priests Manuel da Nóbrega and José de Anchieta collected data on the Tupi-Guarani languages to try to communicate with the indigenous peoples. We have no information on such work in Africa or the Eastern regions. However, we know that the Jesuits were excellent interpreters and produced materials that allowed the translation of several languages, such as a Portuguese- Japanese dictionary (1603). There were also "schools" for the indigenous in the mission in Brazil. Besides learning the fundaments of reading and writing, the indigenous were implicitly instilled with a moral and work formation. There was work training for men and women in the missions, with differences according to the sexes. The domination through cultural assimilation, based on the Christianization of the peoples, the adoption of habits, and work training, was present in the whole colonizing process, with no questioning. In the East, this strategy was later joined by an official policy of miscegenation, proposed by Afonso de Albuquerque, Governor of India, to increase Portuguese numbers in densely populated countries.

The schools created by some religious orders targeted the children of the settlers. To continue their studies, these young people needed to take an admission exam in the Colégio das Artes, to join the Universidade de Coimbra. This scenario is well-known and has been studied by Brazilian and Portuguese researchers. These connections with Coimbra lasted¹³. With its need for technical formation implied by the art of war, the army developed the teaching of Mathematics, the rudiments of Physics and Chemistry, from which we still have manuals.

In the 18th century, the Marquis of Pombal expelled the Jesuits from Portuguese lands, with severe consequences to colonial education. The following appointment of Royal teachers by the Marquis was insufficient so was the structure to compensate for the losses. The court's departure to Brazil changed the white population's panorama, creating more training opportunities. From the perspective of the autochthonous or enslaved population, there were no alternations. In Portugal, liberalism inherited the Pombal educational system, which lasted during the liberal fights.

The Liberal Revolution of 1820, whose centenary we are celebrating in Porto, is more concerned with demanding the king's return to Lisbon and reorganizing the country, devastated by war, than with education. The 1822 Constitution guaranteed teaching freedom, allowing education to become a business area for the petite and middle bourgeoisie. However, the Constitution defined:

“the nation as the union of all Portuguese in both hemispheres” (justifying its “colonialist” policies, in 1820-25, in Brazil, and the colonies in Africa and Asia) guaranteeing them, at least in theory, equal rights and duties [original highlight].

(Marques, 1976, p. 62)

According to the same author, this is a unique case in the constitutional history of European colonizing powers because the 1822 definition indissolubly connected Portugal to its overseas territories, as the Nation was considered one and indivisible. This definition will legitimize the nationalist and colonialist discourses that crossed the liberal Monarchy, the Republic, and the Dictatorship until 1974.

Emigration waves cross the 19th century to Brazil. This letter from the Civil Governor of Porto sent to the chambers, asking for the collaboration of the local elites and pressuring for the opening of schools, is quite informative:

As the population here is excessive, and having the people the habit of emigration, every year, a significant number of young men leave for Brazil seeking a position they would hardly reach if they stayed in their Nation; and these young men, almost all destined to become clerks in commercial houses of that Empire, need to go knowing how to read, write, and count, indispensable to follow the profession of their fathers. Maybe the primary schools are highly attended by them.¹⁴

The lack of resources from the central and local power makes the State appeal for the private initiative to create public schools through the offer of donations. In this sense, the May 19, 1860 Ordinance foresaw some privileges to those giving significant donations. One of the benefits was that the donor could indicate someone for the teacher position. Among those who donated school buildings to the State were “returning Brazilians”¹⁵. Since the mid-19^th century, the national educational system gradually became more modern and established from elementary to higher education. This modernization was completed in the Republic with the creation of the universities of Lisbon and Porto. We will not linger in this process. We point out that there are model letters to Brazil (Rio de Janeiro) in primary education reading manuals, showing the continuation of the migratory flow from the north of Portugal to Brazil from the 19^th century until the 1930s. Repercussions from the Empire and the colonized Other in Portugal's schools.

In this work, we will focus only on some school manuals of Primary School (Elementary Education) in the 20^th century to analyze how the Empire was reflected in the education given to children. We will also use some information from the Boletins da Agência Geral das Colónias between 1934-1940, when the great Portuguese Colonial Exhibitions were held, closing the cycle of colonial exhibitions in Europe, started in the 19^th century.

Table 1
Material analyzed

Author/Series	Title
Lopes, A. Simões	Selecta das Escolas. Livro de Leitura destinado à 4.ª Classe das Escolas Primárias. Porto: Lopes e Cª Editores.1906
Lopes, A. Simões	Cartilha Infantil. 2.ª Parte. Exercícios graduados de leitura corrente. (31.ª ed.) Aprovado pelo Governo. Porto: Lopes e Cª Editores.
Ministério da Educação Nacional-National Education Ministry	O Livro da Primeira Classe. s.d., s.l.
Ministério da Educação Nacional- National Education Ministry	O Livro da Segunda Classe. (6.ª ed.) Porto: Ed. Educação Nacional.,1958
Ministério da Educação Nacional- National Education Ministry	O Livro da Terceira Classe. s.d., s.l.
Série Escolar Figueirinhas	Geografia- Ensino Primário Elementar. (Nova edição, actualizada, em harmonia com os programas). Porto: Livraria Figueirinhas [1955].
Série Escolar Educação, de António Figueirinhas	Livro de Leitura para a 1.ª classe do Ensino Primário Elementar. Porto: Ed. Educação Nacional, [1948?]
Série Escolar Educação, de António Figueirinhas	Livro de Leitura para a 2.ª classe do Ensino Primário Elementar. Porto: Ed. Educação Nacional, [1948?]
Série Escolar Educação, de António Figueirinhas	Livro de Leitura para a 3.ª classe do Ensino Primário Elementar. Aprovado oficialmente. Nova edição. Porto: Ed. Educação Nacional, [1951?]
Primeira Exposição Colonial Portuguesa No Porto	Colónia de Moçambique. Estação Zootécnica de Chobela. Lourenço Marques: Imprensa Nacional de Moçambique, 1934.
Coleção Pátria	Almeida, Virgínia de Castro. Aventuras do Grande Capitão do Mar em Terras Desconhecidas. Lisboa: Edições S.P.N., 1941
Coleção Pátria	Almeida, Virgínia de Castro. História do Grande Marinheiro que o mar enfeitiçou. Lisboa: Edições S.P.N., 1941
Boletim da Agência Geral das Colónias16- General Colonial Agency Bulletin

First, we need to contextualize these manuals. Simões Lopes was a school inspector in the North region who wrote many books, some with numerous editions, such as Cartilha Infantil, which started to be published in the 1880s. He was a teacher who crossed the Monarchy and the Republic, showing concern with the emigration wave to Brazil in the early 20^th century and proposing that schools should be a way to value the rural areas and maintain people there. The books of the National Education Ministry, edited since 1941, were the only ones compulsorily used in all schools during the Dictatorship. The books from Série Escolar da Educação Nacional, by António Figueirinhas, were approved in 1948, 1951, and 1961, still in the Dictatorship. These were new editions from a person connected to the Catholic sector close to the regime. Sometimes, the school inspectors advised using them with the single books as complementary reading. The publications from the Secretary of National Propaganda from 1939 to 1943 fit into the Centenaries and Colonial Exhibition celebrations. We also consulted the Boletim da Agência Geral das Colónias¹⁷, 7 volumes, 84 numbers between 1934 and 1940.

Simões Lopes’s books are unequal regarding what they should reflect about the Empire. The oldest children's booklet, from the 31^st edition, does not reference the colonies, confirming Vidigal (1996) and Madeira (2007), who said that the colonial world was practically unknown to the Portuguese children. In only one text entitled "The Progress" the author refers to the abolition of slavery, freedom of consciousness, religious tolerance, and the equality of citizens under the law. It concludes that “In the individual, progress produces joy and virtue; in humanity, progress produces civilization” [original highlight] (p. 80). The civilization concept appears as a synonym of material and social progress. In the 1906 book for Year 4, the same author has five texts referencing the colonies. The first ones have two photos: one showing a "caravan of black men from Benguela, a city in the province of Angola, who, after exchanging the rubber they brought for fabrics, were ready to return to their land”(pp. 38-39). The other showed a group of Africans with elephant tusks who sold would sell them in an ivory factory (p. 49).

Figure 2
Angolan workers caravan to sell ivory at the factory door.

There are also three other texts on emblematic historical figures: Prince D. Henrique; Nuno Álvares Pereira, and Mouzinho de Albuquerque. The highlight of the later was because of the then-recent victory over Mozambique's Vátuas, with the prison of the “African sovereign, the terror of the region, the Gungunhana” (p. 85), and the pacification of the Gaza region “due to the initiative of Capitan Mouzinho de Albuquerque the war with the gentile was over, in this occasion, and effectively take possession of such a rich region” (p. 85). Gaza was the theme of another text portraying Gungunhana. Praising Mouzinho da Silveira, the text presents the region as agriculturally fertile, the pacified population as good workers, and the surplus corn sold to the neighboring British colonies (pp. 102-104). At the end of the book, a text by Alves Mendes presents a unitary definition of the Nation, which will be developed during the decades as a fundament of nationalism and colonialism:

The homeland is not only the origin land…it is the Minho with its orchards…the Douro with its vineyards…the multitude of our provinces and our necklace of colonies…this grand personality, known by the name of Nation, which is providentially engendered by the historical mechanics and social chemistry, displays, through space and time, the same face and spirit: one single language, one single belief, one single faith.

(pp. 302-303)

In the single books of the Estado Novo there are no references to Africa or Africans. They are present only in the Year 3 book about the Empire extension.

Figure 3
Cover and page 17 of Livro de Leitura da 3.ª Classe. Livro único para a 3.ª classe

The text concludes that "Portugal has possessions in almost all parts of the world" and that "the Portuguese language is spoken in all these territories and also in Brazil," ending with:

When seeing the enormous extension of the Portuguese Empire, we admire the heroism of our ancestors – wise men, sailors, soldiers, and missionaries - who magnified the Nation. In their name, they crossed unknown seas, suffered the inclemencies of unhealthy climates, and battled brutal fights in faraway places.

Let us learn the lesson of their effort with them, to love and to serve our dear Homeland

(Ministério da Educação Nacional, s.d., Livro de Leitura da 3.ª Classe, p.18)

The reference to "brutal fights" appear as one more aspect of the effort and heroism of their ancestors. It expresses the empirical perspective, the assumption of the past expansion and territorial conquest. It does not carry the perspective of the people living in these territories, who are missing from the narrative.

For Year 4, which was optional but obligatory and preparation for those joining a high or technical school, there were no single books but Government-approved manuals. Depending on the region, the school inspectors would recommend one manual or another. The most used ones were from Livraria Civilização and Livraria Figueirinhas, known for their support of the regime. The school series Figueirinhas appeared with a Geography book for primary school in 1955, which compares the Portuguese colonial Empire with that of other colonial powers.

Figure 4
Pages of the book Livro de Geografia. Série Escolar Figueirinhas. Ensino Primário Elementar 1955

These are well-built didactic pages, seeking an intuitive view of the colonial grandness and its importance. At this time, students learned at school the physical geography of colonial territories, their main productions, and richness, while human geography presented the main ethnical groups. Students had to memorize strange names, such as coconote, cautchu, coffee, and cacao plants, which they did not have the faintest idea of the appearance. Thus, these entrails would match the grand mythical idea of the Portuguese Nation.

Geography, History, Portuguese, and Religion established an unquestionable core of an image of the Empire that sought to transmit, mainly in the 20^th century, when the school became a fundamental vehicle of national-colonial integration. The school's task was to teach the uneducated to read and write, modernize them, and, thus, prepare them for the modernization of agriculture. The general task of colonizers was to bring the "gentiles" to work and civilization, to catechize and assimilate them. The Portuguese's true mission was to form a great nation keeping its historical heritage as "the lords of navigation and conquest ."Until the start of the colonial war, there was no background difference between the defenders of the Dictatorship and those of the Republic: both were opposed to ceding or selling colonial territories, as the issue was seen internationally in the early 20^th century¹⁸ . The difference was in how to manage, occupy, and explore the territories. There were always critical voices, since 'The Old Man of Restelo'¹⁹, but they were a minority with no political-social expression. In the 19th century, the issue of the "pink map" and the English ultimate to Portugal, because of the geographical exploitation and the delineation of Central Africa frontiers, kindled the patriotic spirit and the reassurance, with popular and Republic support to defend and maintain colonial territories.

From the point of view of administration and literacy of colony children, this work was given to the Catholic or laic missions, which the Republic unsuccessfully encouraged. The support of Catholic missions was a way to stop the English and German influences through protestant missions.

In Brazil, we know the role played by the Jesuit priests Manuel da Nóbrega and José de Anchieta to collect the local languages, tupi-guarani, to efficiently evangelize, assimilate, and turn the native into subjects of the king. However, there is a great void about the rest of the Empire.

About this, we found in Biblioteca Pública do Porto, the manual, O ABC dos Indígenas, from Priest Domingos Vieira. Its subtitle is Método de leitura: segundo os principios de João de Deus: adaptado ao ensino dos indígenas de Angola nas duas principais línguas do norte e centro, nas escolas rurais das missões católicas²⁰. This is the 10^th edition, published in 1951, in Lisbon, at Tipografia. da Liga dos Combatentes da Grande Guerra. The 1951 edition has photos of the Governor or public agents visiting mission schools. This manual reveals the 6^th edition (1934), published at Tipografia da Missão Católica do Huambo. In the 6^th edition, from 1934, the title on the cover is: O ABC dos Vimbundos. Nas Escolas Indígenas das Missões Católicas. Inside, we pressume the subtitle Método de leitura segundo os princípios de João de Deus / João Ninguém²¹. It has 69 pages. We have recently discovered the existence of a Kimbundo Grammar, also from 1934, edited in Portugal, targeting the formation of people for the Portuguese administration, published by a teacher of the Colonial School.

We focused on the 1951 booklet edition as we could no longer consult the 1934 edition in Biblioteca Pública do Porto, as it was not accessible. The book's role was to be a literacy booklet. The novelty was the translation into two Angola languages: Fiote from Congo, primarily spoken in the north, and the Mbundu, more used in the center of Angola.

Figure 5
Cover of the book O ABC dos indígenas, 10ª ed.,Vieira, D. (1951)

In the manual, we find religious tales, the Portuguese national anthem, and many poems. The book uses poetry/rhymes to teach grammatical rules, translated into two Angolan national languages, as well as some drawings and photos, as seen in Figure 6. The nationalist intention was explicit in the Dictatorship to instill the idea of belonging to the Portuguese Nation, adopting the religion and costumes to be civilized.

Figure 6
Rules of Accentuation in rhymes and the teaching of the letter V in the three languages

Among the book figures, there is one of the Huambo mission and another of a band with the following subtitle: "Nationalizing through music! Promoting parties to raise funds for the Missionaries Works from the sea to the frontier" (p. 110). The book included other poetries and the national anthem, also translated into Angolan languages

The 10^th edition, though edited in Portugal, was not known to the public, as it was used in the missions. The linguistic register would have raised the Portuguese administration's interest in other languages. However, until now, we do not know if there was another material produced targeting the education of the population from other colonies. The fact is that this manual is part of Portuguese missionary tradition, which started with the Jesuits in Brazil and Japan but has gone through adaptations to the new editorial context, using drawings and photos. Besides this, more than catechism, there was a clear intention to nationalize using education, music, and poetry as essential elements in this process. In this 1951 edition, the missionary in the book cover, the photos of schools, official visits, and the band aimed to provide an idea of harmony and the Portuguese civilizing mission with the native populations. This would allow the Ministry of Colonies to affirm in 1940: “To Portugal, colonize is not to economically explore for the exclusive profit of the metropole." ²².

It was post-World War II. There was the need to shape the discourse to the new conditions but following the same lines as the Berlin and Paris conferences, which guaranteed colonial domains and determined that colonizers had the duty of civilizing. Seeking to ground the overseas territories as "an integral part of a single Nation," the minister at the time argued that “colonize has, to Portugal, a more transcendent and human sense” … “With no arrogance, aware of our superiority” … “colonize is … to make a transfusion of souls." ²³ “Colonize is, to us Portuguese, a true and continuous act of love.” (p. 8).

This belief in cultural superiority allowed the Portuguese Colonial Exhibitions in 1934, in Porto, and the Portuguese World Exhibition, in Lisbon, 1940, with an enormous display of peoples made into pieces of a human zoo.

Figure 7
Image of the Colonial exhibition in Porto, 1934, with population and instruction data in the administrative area of Companhia de Moçambique

Through them, there was the dissemination among the Portuguese population of this feeling of superiority, which fuelled racism. Simultaneously, it showed the weak settlement and domain of the European-origin population and the low educational indexes, which were rudimentary and adapted to the indigenous peoples.

This manual proves the existence and continuation, until the mid-20th century, of a specific pedagogy used by some congregations or Catholic missions in the Portuguese Empire: the collection of the most spoken native languages, which worked as facilitating bonds between African ethnicities. At the same time, they were used to translate the religious teachings and what the central power decided to be essential to "civilize ."The interest is to maintain this missionary practice of collecting the writing of indigenous languages to teach Portuguese. It was simultaneously a way of recognizing the other, their otherness, and humanity, which the discourse of the "wild indigenous" denied. When was this practice, which has remained almost ignored in Portuguese historiography, abandoned? This is one of the many questions we still need to find the answer. However, we suppose it was abandoned in the 1960s, with the beginning of the colonial war and the development of the official public teaching of Portuguese in Portuguese, as the only language of written communication.

Raising questions for future studies

The work presented does not cover all master's dissertations and doctoral theses on the topic, thus the need for an updated review on the theme. We still do not know about the methods and means used during Portuguese colonies by the Catholic missions from different religious orders. Ana Maria Madeira (2007) affirms that the teaching in Catholic missions in Mozambique was a rudimentary one, done in the native languages. Amadeu Castilho Soares (2002) states that the first manuals for primary rural education in Angola date from 1960-61, a result of the Plano de ensino Primário Rural [Plan for Rural Primary Education] in Angola, in the same year. Indeed, the author refers to the school manuals under the State's responsibility for public teaching. However, Sara Cardoso identifies a manual for Catholic missions from 1939 (Cardoso, 2013). However, the issue of indigenous teaching was debated in Portugal in the Sociedade de Geografia de Lisboa [Lisboa Geography Society] since 1878, Adolfo Coelho defended a proposal to study the indigenous languages bantu, nbundo, and zulu, India modern dialects, and its teaching in the Colonial School, to be created (Santos, 2020). Would the editions of this O ABC dos Indígenas be part of this line of thought and action? Which continuity and changing lines could be established among the catechism tradition of Jesuits, Franciscans, and Dominicans, the proposals of the Sociedade de Geografia, and the manuals from the 19^th and 20^th centuries?

These issues challenge new collaborative studies among researchers from different Lusophone spaces.

• 1
  Thematic dossier organized by: José Cláudio Sooma Silva <https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3647-8703> e José Antonio Miranda Sepulveda <https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4460-7704>
• 3
  References correction and bibliographic normalization services: Vera Lúcia Fator Gouvêa Bonilha <[e-mail]>
• 4
  Funding: Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia- FCT - Projeto REduF – Raízes da Educação para o Futuro (refª. PT/DC/CED-EDG/30342/2017 and Centro de Investigação e Intervenção Educativas - CIIE
• 5
  English version: Viviane Ramos <[e-mail]>
• 6
  Acc. Torres, R. de A. (1985, V. I, pp. 337-339).
• 7
  Luciano Cordeiro was its main encourager. He represented Portugal in 1878, during the Congress of Colonial Geography in Paris and was president of the Portuguese Exhibition in Rio de Janeiro, in the following year. Machado, (1981, pp. 145-147).
• 8
  About this theme, see Madeira, Ana Isabel. Ler, escrever e orar (2007, pp.66-67)
• 9
  Uma campanha alegre is the result of a compilation of different articles from the author, written between 1871-1872, entitled As Farpas. Crónica mensal da Política, das Letras e dos Costumes, with Ramalho Ortigão. About this, see the Introduction of Maria Filomena Mónica to the edition of As Farpas, 2004. The reader can compared it with the 1890 edition through the link: https://books.google.pt/books/about/Uma_campanha_alegre.html?id=My03AQAAMAAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=kp_read_button&hl=pt-PT&redir_esc=y
• 10
  Serpa Pinto, in the expedition from the South of Angola to Pretoria, after separating from Roberto Ívens.
• 11
  We can find some elements in the work of José Silvestre Ribeiro (1871-1892).
• 12
  Acc. Vidigal, Luís. Entre o exótico e o colonizado: Imagens do outro em manuais escolares e livros para crianças no Portugal Imperial (1890-1945).In Nóvoa, A. et al., op. cit, pp.379-419, we can find a bibliography related to children's manuals and literature studies. However, it affirms that the treatment of the theme 'images of the Other' is "practically inexistent ."The most profound work about Mozambique is undoubtedly the one of Madeira (2007). The author continues to produce works on colonial education.
• 13
  Acc. For instance, Cruz’s (2014) recent work.
• 14
  District Archive of Porto. Fundo do Governo Civil do Porto. Correspondence registry books of the Civil Government of Porto. Correspondence sent to the Municipal chambers from Sept.14, 1862, to Aug, 2, 1873. Acc. Felgueiras, Margarida L. (2012).
• 15
  Portuguese people who immigrated to Brazil and returned to Portugal to spend the end of their lives and sought prestige and public recognition, maybe even a nobility title, due to their acquired fortune.
• 16
  I thank my colleague José Pedro Amorim, for the support in initially exploring this material, aiming for another joint research project.
• 17
  Available in http://memoria-africa.ua.pt/Library/BGC.aspx
• 18
  For example, King Leopold from Belgium bought, on a personal basis, the region that would become the "Belgian Congo."
• 19
  TN: A fictional character from the Portuguese epic poem The Lusiadas by Luis de Camões.
• 20
  TN: Reading Method: according to the principles of João de Deus, adapted to the teaching of Angolan indigenous in the two main languages of the north and center, in the rural schools of Catholic missions]
• 21
  TN: The Vimbundos ABCs in the Indigenous Schools of the Catholic Missions. Subtitle Reading method according to the principles of João de Deus / João Ninguém
• 22
  Boletim da Agência Geral das Colónias. n.º 186, p.3
• 23
  Boletim da Agência Geral das Colónias. n.º 186, p.4.

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2

Responsible editor: André Luiz Paulilo <https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8112-8070>

Publication Dates

• Publication in this collection
  14 Aug 2023
• Date of issue
  2023

History

• Received
  18 May 2021
• Reviewed
  01 Sept 2022
• Accepted
  14 Sept 2022