This article compares the methods and means employed by the state to enforce the education of (semi-)autonomous indigenous groups in southern Chile and northwestern Mexico (Sonora), border regions in the Latin American periphery, covering the transition from colonial times to the consolidation of independent republics until the middle of the nineteenth century. Parting from a theoretical interest in education as a mode of governance, this article discusses how schooling and teaching enforced popular participation in politics and legitimised rule in spaces of cultural heterogeneity and limited statehood. In this analytical frame, concepts of cultural transfer are enriched with current discussions about legitimacy and (soft) steering mechanisms from political science in order to evaluate the legitimising potential of colonial and early postcolonial educational policies. (Contains 72 footnotes.)