‘No’ to the establishment of a university in Brazil

analysis of a seventeenth century document

Abstract

This paper investigates an early attempt of establishing the first university in colonial Brazil, making use of a recently discovered document from the seventeenth century. The document is a legal opinion from 1670, elaborated by the Portuguese royal court known as Mesa da Consciência e Ordens, denying a request of the attorney for the Estado do Brasil, who had petioned the Portuguese king D. Pedro II to recognize the Estudos Gerais of the Jesuit College of Bahia as the first university in Brazil. He requested that at least the students graduating in Theology and Philosophy should be granted the same degree as those graduating from the University of Coimbra. The justification for this request was based on the high quality of the teaching offered at the College, as well as on the difficulty and elevated cost that made it impossible for Portuguese-Brazilian youth to attend the Portuguese universities of the time, the University of Coimbra and the University of Évora. We analyze the counter reasons presented by the royal counselors, based on the opinion of the Rector of the University of Coimbra, Father André Furtado de Mendonça, to deny the authorization of establishing a university in Brazil. These arguments possibly served as models to further negative replies to similar requests presented during the time of Portuguese rule.