“É fácil ser cristão quando se vive bem com eles”: educação, cultura e engajamento feminino em Angola. (1939-1970).

Abstract

This paper aims to understand the political action of women in the process of independence of Angola, and the Methodist educational influence. Especially those who were part of the anti-colonial resistance. The analysis has as main objective to understand the Methodist Protestant missions in Angola and their performance in the development of formal education for girls, especially analyzing the performance of Deolinda Rodrigues during the period of anti-colonial struggles. The documentation used for the research was the Diary of an Exile without Return. Luanda: Nzila, 2003 by Deolinda Rodrigues the Statement of the Reverend Malcolm MoVeigh of Stanhope, New Jersey, missionary of the Methodist Church to Angola, Africa, 1558-1961 and the book "Colonial Angola photographed by Methodist missionaries", published by Paul. A. Blake. foundation Agostinho Neto, 2019. Access to the documents was made possible thanks to the use, as research methodology, the digital collections, essentially through the Tchiweka Association of Documentation (ATD); the Mario Soares Foundation and Memories of Africa and the West. The research was developed through the digital collections, according to Almeida (2011), the internet enables the "reduction in space" and the expansion of the historian in the research. The applied methodology is based on research on this theme. For this, we work with the following bibliography, OYEWÚMÍ (2021) will be the basis for analyzing the gender issue beyond the West, without homogenizing and understanding gender issues on the African continent, as a colonial social construct. Paredes (2010), analyzing the Methodist church and the MPLA movement through the writings of Deolinda Rodrigues, which the author makes an analysis of Deolinda's education through the church, her entry into the MPLA and the criticism reported by Deolinda Rodrigues in her personal diary. Whose results, consisted in the perception of understanding that formal education conducted by the Methodist missions was synonymous with greater educational possibilities for many Angolans who were fighting against Portuguese colonialism.