"No tempo do pega": lugares e memórias da Balaiada no ensino de História em São Bernardo-MA

Abstract

This essay on History teaching aims to understand the representations of Balaiada in the past and present of São Bernardo-MA, considering the memories and oral tradition shared between citizens throughout time about the vestiges of slavery and Balaiada resistance processes. We analyze the silences and forgetfulness of this past from the teaching of History in the researched school and also in the city, the narratives and historical discourses nowadays. To analyze this strategy, the essay was structured as an action research, exploring the different places of the city and rural communities of black ancestry. In this sense, we elaborated activities inside and outside the school, exploring history, memory and oral traditions. By dealing with citizens and immaterial sources, students were instrumentalized in dealing with oral sources, produced by recording interviews conducted in the city and in the communities, collecting testimonies of oral traditions. Within the theoretical-methodological contribution of the research – action, class – workshop and Oral History, students prepared forms with questions about the origin of the city, the past of slavery and the remains of Balaiada in the region. The data collected allowed us to analyze several aspects of local historicity, mainly regarding issues related to the black resistance processes in Balaiada, in the sites of memory, versions and traces of the city’s past. Also, as part of this master’s essay and didactic-pedagogical product, we prepared a documentary, presenting oral narratives, group memories and representations of the Balaio past in non-formal learning spaces combined with the teaching of History and Public History.