Teachers as public servants in the Viceroyalty of New Granada and the Republic of Colombia: reflections on salary scales and the funding of teachers in Escuelas de Primeras Letras (1810–1830)
Year: 2026
Type: article
Abstract: The War of Independence of the Viceroyalty of New Granada (the name given to the territory of present-day Colombia, Venezuela, Ecuador, and Panama under Spanish rule unfolded as a transitional process between 1810 and 1830. During this period, Spanish rule gave way to a republican order, and former vassals became republican citizens. A central institution in these transformations was the Escuela de Primeras Letras (schools of reading and writing). The term Escuela de Primeras Letras refers to a government-regulated form of elementary education through which children were introduced to reading and, above all, to writing in Spanish: in this educational practice, schoolteachers emerged as key actors in their capacity as piublic servants. This article examines, precisely, the salary conditions of two schoolteachers – a monarchical teacher, Agustín Joseph de Torres, and a republican teacher, Sebastián Mora Berbeo – against the backdrop of a turbulent transitional period defined by the War of Independence and the Spanish Reconquest (1810–1819), and the invention of the Republic of Colombia (1819–1830), using teachers’ pay as a lens onto the fiscal relationship between the emerging State and the institution of elementary schooling.
Source: Paedagogica Historica
Author: John Cardenas-Herrera
Institution: Universidad del Tolima
Language: English
Subfield: Education
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: hybrid
Funder: Universidad del Tolima
OpenAlex ID: W7225251147