Para além da liberdade... Abolicionismo e educação como um amplo projeto de emancipação

Abstract

The aim of the present work is to investigate the line of thought on education endorsed by intellectuals and abolitionism organizations, as well as educational proposals developed in the Province of Rio de Janeiro and in the Court from the second half of the XIX century. During that period, education and abolitionism began to be discussed, and, by some, considered as a necessity to the process of modernization of the Empire, so as to reach the objectives of civility and progress. Various educational institutions, such as the Faculty of Medicine, the Polytechnic School, and the Military School, promoted events against slavery and created abolitionist associations, mobilizing a large number of teachers and students. Supported by a militant press and public conferences, the abolitionist movement acquired an instructive character - since it aimed to show the inefficiency of the slave regime and its harmful effects on society - by creating associative organizations that had the objective of liberating and instructing people, therefore reaching, with their actions, several social sectors, and among them, the lower classes. Through a bibliographical and documental research, based on documents from the press and other types of documents (diaries, letters, enrollment maps, balance sheets, etc.), the aim of this research is to understand how education was conceived and proposed by the abolitionist movement, and what were the consequences of these experiences for the education of the lower classes, including the black population (enslaved, free or freed). It highlights the protagonism of a black intelligentsia, the female involvement in the movement, and the active participation of enslaved and freed people. The central thesis is that education played a leading role in the process of deconstructing the bases of slave exploitation, by being a differentiated form of activism, advocated and provided by intellectuals and abolitionist societies.