A Geografia de um saquarema: Justiniano José da Rocha e o contexto de construção do Brasil Imperial e de institucionalização de um saber escolar

Abstract

This thesis aims to present the inicial context of institucionalisation of school geography on the secundary education in Brazil through a unique character of the national history, who directly and actively engaged in the development of a project of country. This work highlights the political background and the main discussions in which Justiniano José da Rocha took part during his militant activity for the conservative cause (a conservativism not just moralistic, based on customs, but most importantly advocate of a social and political order).Set in a long decisive period for the maintenance of a single and indivisible Brazil (generically between the post-abdication years, in 1831, and the so-called “liberal renaissance” in the 1860s; or more specifically in the years of Justiniano’s intellectual activity, between 1835 and 1862), here we propose to demonstrate how the school geography taught by Justiniano in the Imperial Colégio de Pedro II, as the first teacher of the subject in that Institution, founded by government initiative, corresponded to the expectations of the saquarema project, at that period, the hegemonic political force which primarily functioned so that Brazil would not fragment politically and territorially. It is argued here that the geography taught in the benches of Colégio Pedro II, different from the mnemonic alias, was meaningless and, therefore, tedious; qualities normally attributed to the school geography of the 1800s was, in fact, eivated with meanings that converge with the purpose of forming children of the good society which would constitute the "world of government" , that is, would establish the landlord class, being more specific, the ruling class in Imperial Brazil. It represented, therefore, a geography aligned with the interests of both the constitution and perpetuation of a political and social order materialized as an Imperial State project.