Escritos esquecidos: pesquisas e histórias do acesso do povo preto à cultura letrada no século XIX

Abstract

The theme of this paper is the relationship between the black population's access to literate culture and the struggles of black people in 19th century Brazil, before and after the Abolition of Slavery. Its aim was to survey and analyze scientific research that problematizes the stigma of the black population (enslaved, freed and forced) as having no command of reading and writing during the 19th century. It is the result of a bibliographic search carried out on the Journal Portal of the Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES). Different search strategies were used in order to find a greater number of results that include publications from 2003 to 2024, which mention studies on the 19th century, highlighting the slavery scenario and the absence/presence of opportunities for the enslaved or freed black population to master literate culture. The research made it possible to observe that investigations into this subject were carried out using sources such as letters, laws, powers of attorney, printed newspapers, manifestos, among other documents from around Brazil. The results prove the presence of enslaved, freed and free people in the schooling process in the 19th century, as well as emphasizing the different possibilities of teaching reading and writing to these people, who mastered literate culture and used it both in their political struggles for freedom, for the abolition of slavery and against racism, and in the exchange of everyday information. The lack of knowledge of this history is reflected in the inheritance of the content taught in universities, specifically in degree courses, and consequently in contemporary schools.