This article analyzes the process of the school obligation establishment as an element of mediation between the racial profile of the population and the idea of civilization that oriented the process of educational construction in Minas Gerais State. In the nineteenth century, it was an expressive predominance of the black population in Minas Gerais. This fact can be taken as a reference for the idea that school obligation had become a condition to guide the regulation and to control certain aspects of that part of the population. In order to carry this analysis through, we used as reference a census documentation that, in 1831, counted the population of all districts of Minas Gerais, Reports of Provincial Presidents, narration of voyage and memories of the people that was in contact with the population of Minas Gerais in the nineteenth century.
Black people; Schooling; Educational History
