Abstract
This article focuses on the relations between public education and political disputes in the Province of Maranhão. We start from an event occurred in July 1838: a substitute teacher dismissal inspired, according to the oppositional press report, by political persecution. The report treated the case as a new arbitrary act of the President of Province, which transformed education into a “game of parties”. Initially, we present the complaint published in the newspaper Chronica Maranhense and refer to the genesis of the political groups in fight at that time. Then, we analyze the trajectories of two figures involved in the episode: João Francisco Lisboa, the complainant, and Estevão Rafael de Carvalho, the fired teacher, both of them prominent individuals in provincial politics. In the third item, we concentrate on the third figure, the President of Province Vicente Thomaz Pires de Figueiredo Camargo and indicate the conditions of his arrival at Maranhão and his actions concerning public instruction. Finally, we focus on the dismissal situation from Estevão Rafael de Carvalho’s reply; also, we introduce the forth figure, Francisco Sotero dos Reis, politician, journalist and teacher, accused of being kept as substitute teacher due to his support to the government. We consider that public instruction, as well as press, served as a vehicle for dissemination of ideas and production of opinion, whose control was disputed by political groups. Instead of a personal conflict, the case was an evidence of struggles for the political orientation of the Province of Maranhão.
Keywords:
Public education; political disputes; Imperial Maranhão