The Colombian school textbooks and the Amazon, 1880-1940

This paper analyses Colombian school manuals used from the late 19 th century to the early 2 0th century, with the intention of determining the place that the Amazonia region occupied in these texts. Variables related to production, distribution and contents of the manuals are studied. The manuals that were used in primary education follow a tradition of elite and intellectual authors, who either did not know or ignored the Amazonia region, and whose books bore scant relation to the level of knowledge of the time about the region.