THE VIOLENCE IN THE FAMILIAR RURAL SPACES IN PORTUGAL. THE ALTO MINHO REGION (18TH-19TH CENTURIES)

In the late eighteenth century and during the nineteenth century, the daily life of rural people of the Alto Minho region of northern Portugal, was filled mainly with agricultural work, trying to make a decent living from small plots of land. In a context marked by rurality, the house was not always safe and peaceful place for living in it. If, on the one hand, served as a meeting point and place of refuge for the family, sometimes also worked as a stage for scenes of violence. In some cases, the protagonists were in the condition of aggressors or victims, there were those who lived together, sometimes the violence came as a result of robberies, some with tragic outcomes as well, triggered particularly in order to achieve another's property, was to ensure subsistence, if only to satisfy greed.