Abstract
This article seeks to understand the similarities among the modes of thinking behind the educational project proposed by José Veríssimo in 1890, the plans that arose in the ethnography section of the 1st Brazilian Congress of Geography in Rio de Janeiro in 1909, and the launching of the Service for the Protection of the Indian and Localization of National Workers (SPILTN) in 1910. The analysis of The National Education (1906 [1890]) by Veríssimo, the minutes of the 1st Brazilian Congress of Geography, as well as the recommendations of SPILTN, reveal repeated discussion about the susceptibility of indigenous people to “civilization.” Such civilization, by means of education, aimed at transforming the identity of indigenous people through the assimilation of so-called “civilized society’s” habits and values. Thus, the analysis of these documents demonstrates how concepts of civilization, race, education, urbanity and nation were embedded in contemporary thinking in the search for a national identity and helped generate a negative perception of the indigenous people. The conclusion is that the insertion of the Indian into the nation through education was permitted, as long as he shed his ethnic identity. An attitude that was meant to represent respect for the indigenous people as human beings, thus, reveals itself as a form of disrespect.
José Veríssimo; Education; Civilization; Otherness; Indigenism