O destino dos expostos e órfãos: uma análise sobre os cuidados e assistências aos infantis desvalidos na Província de São Pedro do Rio Grande do Sul (1837-1860)

Abstract

The present study, inscribed in the field of History of Education, aims to analyze the institutionalization of assistance to underprivileged children in the Provincia de São Pedro do Rio Grande Sul between the years 1837 and 1860. The process of social awareness and welcoming actions institutionalized and child welfare in our country is directly related from the constant practice of abandoning children on the sidelines of the streets and isolated places, a situation found with recurrence in several regions of Brazil since the Colonial Period. In the territory of Rio Grande do Sul it was no different, at first, the City Councils, as governmental and legal bodies, were responsible for the care and referral of underprivileged children to the families that wanted to raise them. However, due to administrative and financial obstacles to the cost of caring for so-called !foundless” children, the Santas Casas de Misericórdia of Porto Alegre, Rio Grande and Pelotas began to assume this duty by order of the Provincial Legislative Assembly. From a historical research, through a culturalist theoretical and methodological perspective, we identified in a set of documents, produced by the Legislative Assemblies of the Provincia de São Pedro do Rio Grande do Sul, subsidies to understand the outline of different actions that were proposed in order to create possible destinations for orphans and the underprivileged. As the main device for reception, the Santas Casas instituted the Foundling Wheels as a charitable and protective mechanism for helpless and abandoned children. As a result, a network of institutionalized assistance to children in situations of social vulnerability emerged, in order to avoid, in the extreme south of Brazil, the increase in infant mortality rates, as well as to reduce the number of underprivileged children wandering around urban centers. Based on this, the Misericórdias were responsible for providing support with regard to directing babies from 0 to 3 years old to wet nurses, looking after the health of the sick children and directing them to the breeding families. However, given the constant frequency of children entering the Foundling Wheels, the Administrative Boards of the Santas Casas began to debate the future fate of orphans and exposed children who turned 7 or 8 years old. It is identified that the gender difference influenced the possibility of referral to other assistance, educational or military institutions, which were gradually formalized. In this way, to base our investigations of the themes presented here, we used documentation, such as the Council Minutes, the Reports of the Presidents of the Province, the Minutes of the Sessions of the Administrative of Porto Alegre, the Reports of the Santa Casa de Misericórdia de Rio Grande and also local newspapers of the investigated period.