Still persists the idea that during the eighteenth century Chile lived a time of both social and moral repression, especially in the rural sectors of the population, where people lived separated from the main urban centers, sometimes even by their own choice. That is why the objective of this article is to investigate through judicial records how social control and the way in which it was exercised by the authority through the administration of justice influenced the population and what were the problems faced by the crown to carry on this control throughout the 18th century. The importance of this research lies in looking a bit away from the usual social history surrounding the studies on chilean rural communities and combining concepts of sociology and history of mentalities to support the hypothesis.