The role of the Capuchin Congregation in the formation of regional middle classes and elites

Abstract This article discusses the impact of the Capuchin Missionary Sisters educational work on Brazilian middle classes and elites, inscribing this congregation in a larger history, which articulates religious, political and educational matters in the missionary and socio-educational context of the state of Maranhão, in the northeastern region of Brazil, where these women were widely settled. Courageous and skilled, they arrived in a rudimentary mission field and, perhaps for this reason, they had to devote themselves to the formal education of middle classes and regional elites in order to fill regional educational gaps and, at the same time, to constitute the financial and patrimonial capital that would allow them to support the congregation.