The History of New-Christians in Colonial Brazil and the Writing in the Textbooks: A Comparative Studie

Abstract

The references about the New Christians in Brazil are vast in the Brazilian historiography. Fleeing from the Iberian persecutions, thousands of converted Jews came to establish themselves in the colony where they intended to build a new life. It is to be noted the increasing number of studies on this subject aiming at the multiple possibilities of working with these characters, bearing in mind, the community groups they formed here, something that allowed for their envolvement in a series of activities within various and different space and time. Our interest is that of analyzing the presence of these individuals in some textbooks, the ones adopted in the Medium and High Schools for the teaching of the History of Brazil, and going back to the time of its Discovery. It is our goal to understand the way these characters have been presented in the writing of the history textbooks, taking into consideration, their inherence complexity. The New Christians were a confirmed presence during the whole colonization period. They can be found in the society they began to be a part of, thus having a series of elements of their culture still present nowadays. Through several sources, such as our own textbooks, this study intends to comprehend how the historical knowledge was built concerning our formation within a predominantly Christian society. It is our view that such matter meaningfully influences the kind of teaching and learning intended by the schools, as shown in the textbooks which are part of the school material culture.