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Paper short abstract:

What do the Portuguese schoolbooks contribute to create a certain imaginary of the Brazilian backlands or “sertão”? How is the conquest and occupation of this hinterland displayed by the historic narratives of these textbooks?

Paper long abstract:

In the early days of Brazilian colonization, the idea of "sertão" essentially referred to the territory between the coast and the meridian of Tordesillas, which demarcated the Portuguese from the Spanish dominions at approximately 885 kilometers east of Cape Verde. The whole vast area of the interior remained an unknown giant for the Portuguese settlers who were established on the coast. From the time of the Iberian Union (1580 and 1640) onwards, this hinterland began to be effectively exploited and incorporated into the frontier lands of Brazil. Our main objective is to analyze how this historical process of conquest and occupation of the "sertões" was represented by the Portuguese schoolbooks in the medium duration between the years 1880 and 1960. In this sense, we will examine historiographical narratives of schoolbooks - from the most elementary to the highest level of education - which built an imaginary that contributed to propagate an exotic vision related to the Brazilian backlands. Moreover, we aim to investigate how the imperialist logic that conditioned these textbooks in different moments collaborated to legitimize the civilizing work of the Luso-Christian world in a reality considered wild and barbaric. Finally, we will discuss the consecration of the figure of the "bandeirantes" at the pantheon of the Portuguese history within the lessons about the process of interiorization in Brazil.