Literacy and suffrage: the politicisation of schooling in postcolonial Hispanic America (1810–1850)

Abstract

After independence, the new Latin American polities adopted republican systems of government. This crucial decision stressed the importance of vast projects of popular education for the shaping of the virtuous citizenry to come, a clearly different agent from the old colonial society. As a means of creating new citizens and, at the same time, guaranteeing political rights, many Latin American constitutions and electoral laws foresaw restrictions of male universal franchises on the basis of literacy. Only those citizens able to read and write would be considered full citizens with regard to electoral practices. The illiterate had the use of their political rights temporarily revoked. The article explores the origins, meanings and implementations of this association of elementary school policies and political rights by analysing constitutions and constitutional drafts from all Latin American countries until the middle of the century. Not only will the different voting restrictions and their development be analysed, but also some discursive configurations that accompanied the consolidation of this conception of modern citizenship through formal education in the region.