Percursos de vida. As potencialidades da micro-história e das pesquisas biográficas

Abstract

This paper envisages analysing some features of the behaviour of traders in farming communities. As privileged intermediaries of rural and urban economies, traders developed commercial strategies for using to their advantage farmers' dependence on sales of excess produce. Based on a case-study and using micro-history procedures, we analysed private documents - produced by a young merchant - 22 years old - who established in Paderne, municipality of Melgaço, on the Portuguese-Galician border. The information drawn from this source, compared with that of other sources - parish records and, particularly, notaries' books and electoral censuses - unveils the merchant's path in life and the strategies he adopted to enhance trade and earn the recognition of his peers and the surrounding society. The study develops a narrative of 'individual', based on the analysis of a life. However, the contextualization of this merchant's personal and family strategies against the region's social and economic backdrop provides insight into the cultural model of businessmen.