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Popular education and republican ideals: the Portuguese lay missions in colonial Africa, 1917–1927

2011; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 47; Issue: 1-2 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/00309230.2010.530281

1477-674X

Ana Isabel Madeira,

African history and culture studies

Abstract This article aims to offer another reading of the Portuguese civilising process in Africa on the basis of an analysis of a set of alternative sources and to explore the role of other educational configurations, beyond those of the public school and the religious missionary school, such as the civilising missions. With the creation of the Lay Civilising Missions in 1913, a new and totally lay conception of missionary work in the colonies was instituted. In the context of European colonialism, this configuration is distinguished as one of the most peculiar moments of republican affirmation in the governing of African territories dominated by the Portuguese. Through the analysis of the letters exchanged between the civilising agents, between Portugal and the African colonies, the author will try to analyse the arguments, strategies and tactics of government in terms of wills, inventions, programmes, acts and counter‐acts, thus discussing the discontinuities between the programmes of governing at a distance and local practices. Methodologically speaking, looking at alternative source materials opens up a series of theoretical‐conceptual possibilities, unveiling the tensions and contradictions embedded in the colonial encounter. Keywords: historycolonial educationmissionscolonialismAfricaeducation Notes 1N. Rose and Peter Miller, “Political Power beyond the State: Problematics of Government,” British Journal of Sociology 43, no. 2 (1992): 172–205, article reprinted in the British Journal of Sociology (2010): 271–303; N. Rose, Inventing our Selves: Psychology, Power, and Personhood (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998); See also Nikolas Rose, Powers of Freedom: Reframing Political Thought (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999). The term was originally used by Bruno Latour in Michel Callon and Bruno Latour, “Unscrewing the Big Leviathan: How Actors Macro‐Structure Reality and How Sociologists Help Them to Do So,” in Advances in Social Theory and Methodology: Toward an Integration of Micro and Macro Sociologies, ed. K. Knorr‐Cetina and A. Cicourel (Boston: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1981), 277–303 and in Michel Callon, “Some Elements of a Sociology of Translation,” in Power, Action and Belief: A New Sociology of Knowledge?, ed. J. Law (Boston: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1986), 196–233; Engin Isin transposes the term for the analysis of colonialism in Cities Without Citizens (Montreal: Black Rose Press, 1992). 2Rose, Powers of Freedom…, 49–50. 3Anderson, Benedict. Imagined Communities (London: Verso [7th edn], 1996). 4See Michel Foucault, A arqueologia do saber (Coimbra: Almedina, 2005 [1969]), 143–44. 5See Reinhart Koselleck, Futuro passado: contribuição à semântica dos tempos históricos (Rio de Janeiro: Ed. Contraponto/Ed. PUC‐Rio, 2006), 132. 6See Rose, Powers of Freedom…, 50. 7Decree of October 8, 1910, D.G., no. 4, de 10; COLP, 1910, II, 3. 8It is known that, at the end of the nineteenth century, the Company of Jesus had various missions in Mozambique assisted by foreign personnel, namely in Zambézia (Boroma), and that the congregation of the Sisters of S. José de Cluny, of French origin, looked after the feminine primary teaching at the Institute D. Amelia and the Leão XIII Institute. See Freire Andrade, Relatórios sobre Moçambique, Vol. V (Lourenço Marques: Imprensa Nacional, 1910), 300. See also A.I. Madeira, “Ler, Escrever e Orar: Uma análise histórica e comparada dos discursos sobre a educação, o ensino e a escola em Moçambique, 1850–1950” (doctoral thesis in educational sciences (comparative education), Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences, Lisbon University, 2007), 235. 9Decree of December 31, 1910, D.G., no. 1, of January 3, 1911; COLP, 1910, II, 208–11. 10See Jean Comaroff and John Comaroff, Of Revelation and Revolution, Christianity, Colonialism, and Consciousness in South Africa, Vol I (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1991). 11See Marcelo Caetano, Portugal e a Internacionalização dos Problemas Africanos (Lisbon: Ática, 1971), 106–08. Among the international treaties that Portugal signed and obliged the missions to recognise are: the Treaty of Zaire (1884), the General Act of the Berlin Conference (1885), the General Act of the Brussels Conference (1890), the Portuguese–British Treaty (1891), the Treaty of Versailles (1919) and the Conventions of Saint‐Germain‐en‐Laye (1919). 12Art. 2, decree no. 3352 of September 8, 1917. In Boletim das Missões Civilizadoras, no. 2, May, 1920, 44–52. 13Art. 3, § 1 e 3, decree no. 3352 of September 8, 1917. In Boletim das Missões Civilizadoras, no. 2, May, 1920, 44. 14Art. 3, § 2, decree no. 3352 of September 8, 1917. In Boletim das Missões Civilizadoras, no. 2, May, 1920, 45. 15See A. Oliveira Gomes, Boletim das Missões Civilizadoras, no. 1, April 1920, 7. 16Decree no. 233, of November 22, 1913, extended the Law of Separation of Church and State to the colonies, established the basis of the civilising missions and authorised the government to create them. This creation would be consecrated six years later, in decree no. 5778 of May 10, 1919 (The Missions Law). 17Arts. 11, 12 and 13, in decree no. 3352 of September 8, 1917. In Boletim das Missões Civilizadoras, no. 2, May, 1920, 46. 18Art. 1 of decree no. 5778 of May 10, 1919. In Boletim das Missões Civilizadoras, no. 4, July, 1920, 25. 19Art. 2 of decree no. 5778 of May 10, 1919. In Boletim das Missões Civilizadoras, no. 4, July, 1920, 25. 20Abílio See Marçal, Missões Coloniais. Boletim das Missões Civilizadoras (Instituto de Missões Coloniais. Cernache do Bom Jardim: Tip. do Instituto de Cernache do Bonjardim, 1920), 19. 22See Marçal, Missões Coloniais, 21. 21Art. 5, decree 5778 of May 10, 1919. In Boletim das Missões Civilizadoras, no. 4, July, 1920, 26. 23Hereafter, BCM. 24 Boletim das Missões Civilizadoras [1920, no. 1 – 1925, no. 24]. 25Decree no. 5778 of May 10, 1919. 26Art 17 of decree no. 5778 of May 10, 1919. 27See Marçal, Missões Coloniais…, 7. 28Decree no. 6332 of January 2, 1920. In Boletim das Missões Civilizadoras, no. 8 e 9, December, 1920, 25–29. 29Laws no. 1015 and 1023, of August 7 and 20, 1920 and Decree no. 7008, of October 9, 1920. 30Art 14, only paragraph, Decree no. 242 of February 22, 1923. 31Art 1, 2 and 3 of the provincial edict no. 42, of February 7, 1925. 32 BMC, no. 14, Novembro e Dezembro, 1921, 25–26. The term “mafundiças” was the name accorded to the African “teachers” trained in the Protestant missionary schools, who were considered, in the administration official's eyes, foreign to the Portuguese allegiance. 35 BCM, no. 11, February and April, 1921, 30–31 33See Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities (London: Verso [7th edn], 1996). 34 BCM, no. 11, February and April, 1921: 22 and BCM, no. 14, November and December, 1921, 25–26. 36 BCM, no. 11, February and April, 1921, 28–29. 37 Historical Arquive of Mozambique. Governor‐General fund, Box. 37 [Exposition of the Wesleyan Methodist Missionary Society and the High Commissioner of the Province of Mozambique with a copy to the Navy ministry]; Historical Archive of Mozambique. Governor‐General fund, Box. 26 [Letter no. 164/12/L.A., of 8‐10‐1912, sent by the British Consul in Lourenço Marques to the Governor‐General of the Province of Mozambique]; Historical Archive of Mozambique, Administration, Instruction and Cults fund, Box. 23 [17‐12‐1912 – Letter from the Reverend John S. McGeary, superior of the Free Methodist Church of North America, sent to the Consul of the USA in Lourenço Marques]. 38 BCM, no. 22, January 1925, 32–33. 39 BCM, no. 13, October 1921, 28–34 40 BCM, no. 20, May and August 1924, 32–33. 41 BCM, no. 17, October and December 1922, 36–37. 42 BCM, no. 22, January, 1925, 32–33. 43At the beginning of the twentieth century, the Cartilha Maternal or the “João de Deus” was one of the most common manuals for learning to read. 44See Alfredo Fernandes, Cartilha Experimental: processo intuitivo, analítico, sintético, inventivo, fonomímico, legográfico (Lisbon: Bertrand, 1923). 45 BCM, no. 18, January 1923, 28–30. 46 BCM, no. 19, April 1924, 20. 47 BCM, no. 19, April 1924, 19. 48Decree no. 12886, B.O. no. 6, 1927. 49See The Catholic Missionary, no. 33, Year III: 174–75.