Educar, curar, salvar: uma ilha de civilização no Brasil tropical

Abstract

The research “To educate, to cure, to save: an island of civilization in the Tropical Brazil” was developed based on two points of analysis e temporality. The first analyses the strategies of foundation of a civilizer project by north-american presbiterian missionaries, linked to the Central Brazil Mission in Bahia countryside betwen 1871 to 1937. From churches, schools, hospitals and nursing schools creation, in the area under their jurisdiction, thosse Good mensagers intend to transform the Brazilian countryside into a “civilized” area by producing a new way of life and believe in the society which they become fixed. The second point investigates fragments of Ponte Nova Institute history from 1906, year of foundation, to 1937, when ocurred a structural reconfiguration in side north-american presbiterian mission that aperated in the Brazilian hinterland. Created by Central Brazil Mission, following the north-american presbiterian aducational patterns, the school had a fundamental participation in political action formulation of that missionary organization. Politic that had as objective, forming female teachers for schools and man that would be evangelists and future ministers for churches, transforming them into agents of new civilinzing poposal.