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Costa Rica:
Historically 'tranquilo' Why doesn't it have an army? Why are there more
teachers than policemen? Is it really the Switzerland of Central
America?
There are some key events in Costa Rican history that you should know
about if you are to have a basic understanding of the country. Some are
extended periods of time and others are brief flashes that had a
profound affect on the way Ticos think about themselves and others.
Pre-Colombian
Costa Rica
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The most
developed pre-Colombian population in Costa Rica was that of the
Chorotegas whose ancestors were from Mexico and migrated to the
Nicoya Peninsula. They left Mexico fleeing pursuers and their
name actually translates to "fleeing people." The
Chorotegas lived in cities of as many as 20,000 people which had
central plazas with marketplaces and religious centers. They
were excellent farmers and actually used seeds as currency.
Women worked in ceramics while men farmed or fought in wars, a
perpetual reality in this time
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Military
organizations fought to obtain land and slaves, who were
sometimes used as sacrifices, some even thrown into the
volcanoes of the surrounding area. Thank goodness they believed
in life after death. The Chorotegas are also probably the people
who created the enigmatic granite spheres that are still seen in
many parts of Costa Rica. The artistic artifacts of these people
are many and often beautiful with ceramics, carved jade
figurines, and other exquisite pieces made of gold. Today, many
examples of their art can be seen in the Jade and Gold Museums.
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Colonial
Costa Rica
Christopher Columbus actually landed in Costa Rica on his fourth and
final voyage. He did not investigate the country thoroughly but brought
back positive news to Spain about gold and the friendliness of the
indigenous people which encouraged other adventurers to come.
The first attempt
to colonize Costa Rica, (Veragua as Columbus called it), was made by
Diego De Nicuesa. His mission failed miserably as indigenous peoples
along the Atlantic coast burned the land and crops in front of the
advancing invaders and eventually tropical diseases and starvation
reduced the group by half. Nicuesa gave up. The second attempt was made
by Juan Vásquez de Coronado who decided that the central highlands were
a more hospitable location to settle. He founded Cartago, the first
Costa Rican capital, in 1563 and thus began the first real Spanish
settlement in Costa Rica.
In contrast to
other colonies, there was no large exploitable workforce in Costa Rica,
as the indigenous population had early on been decimated by war and
diseases brought by the Europeans, and those who were still in the
country lived scattered apart. Therefore, not a lot of Costa Ricans
could gather a quantity of slaves. The lack of gold and things to be
exploited quickly made the mother country forget Costa Rican colonists
and Spain also refused to invest much money in their future. Costa
Ricans, then, had to work the land themselves in order to survive and
were forced against their dreams to become a hardworking colony. The
self sufficiency that resulted played a huge part in the making of the
Costa Rican people.
Costa Rica's
population grew slowly on its own with little outside influence. Over
time three new cities were founded in the Central Valley: Cubujuquí (Heredia)
in 1706, Villanueva de la Boca del Monte (San José) in 1737, and Villa
Hermosa (Alajuela) in 1782.
Independence
In October 1821, word came that Spain had granted independence to its
American colonies on September 15th. It had taken news one month to
cross the mountains from Guatemala, the central point of the Spanish
empire in Central America. After a brief period of internal strife,
Costa Rica declared itself a state and the capital was moved from
Cartago to San José.
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Juan Mora
Fernández was an important man in Costa Rica, not only because
he was the country's first president, but also because he set a
standard for the country by concentrating on building roads and
schools and most importantly giving land grants to anyone who
would plant coffee. Small farmers were encouraged to grow coffee
and sell the beans to wealthier farmers, who would prepare the
beans for export. The relationship thus was not one sided and
mutual respect was needed and cultivated between rich and poor,
ideals that have generally been held through Costa Rican
history.
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Coffee soon
became Costa Rica's principal export. Because coffee is a product best
grown in the highlands around the central valley, more and better
quality roads had to be built that led to the coast in order that the
coffee could be sent to the overseas markets. The wealth generated by
coffee also began to bring in investment money from outside the country.
Also, European immigrants trying to earn money, began to arrive. By the
mid-1800's, therefore, Costa Rica had evolved from a self-sufficient and
remote colony into a cosmopolitan state influenced by many European
liberal ideologies.
William Walker
and the Costa Rican Military
William Walker was basically a butcher who wanted to exploit the
possibilities of slavery for his mother country, the United States. His
second expedition into Latin America was to Nicaragua. He had two main
goals. First, convert Central America into a slave territory and annex
it to the southern United States. Second, conquer Nicaragua and ready it
for the construction of a trans-isthmic canal.
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Walker
failed miserably in his participation in the California Gold
Rush of 1849, but it taught him the difficulty of crossing the
U.S. frontier and the potential value of a sea route; using the
San Juan River to travel up from the Atlantic to Lake Nicaragua
and then crossing the lake left only 18 miles to the Pacific
ocean. Walker invaded Nicaragua with 58 men and held his
position until 100's of reinforcements could arrive. It was the
Costa Rican people who rose up and overthrew Walker. Eventually
a force of 2,000 men defeated Walker at Rivas, Nicaragua. In the
action, Walker held out in a building. A young boy named Juan
Santamaría volunteered to set fire to the building and
succeeded in driving out Walker and his men. In the action, the
boy was killed and became both Costa Rica's and Nicaragua's
national hero by helping to defeat one of the more hated figures
in Central American history.
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The United
Fruit Company and The Atlantic Railroad
Minor C. Keith took over the project to build the Atlantic Railroad,
originally started to connect the coffee plantation to the large
Atlantic port of Limón. His idea was not to exploit coffee, but instead
to use his power with investors to complete the railroad in exchange for
land in which to grow bananas. During the building of the railroad, a
workforce of thousands of Jamaican, Italian, and Chinese workers were
recruited, a fact that would change the face of the Costa Rican
population permanently. The railroad was completed in 1890 and until
1970 was the only route from the central valley to Limón.
The Jamaicans
that Keith and others brought in stayed on the Atlantic Coast and began
to work on the banana plantations that Keith established on his newly
gained lands. Keith and a partner founded the United Fruit Company,
which quickly became a legendary social, economic, political and
agricultural force in Costa Rica and in many other Latin American
Countries. Costa Rica quickly became the world's leading banana
producer.
Not only did the
company forever change the Costa Rican economy, but it also changed the
face of social relations. Keith and his company were less than humane in
the treatment of their workers, and San José communists organized the
workers to strike against the company. They demanded regular payment of
salaries, free housing, medical clinics and accident insurance and
eventually forced the company to comply. Socialist strains have never
left the country since this action took place.
Liberalism in
Costa Rica
The birth of liberalism in Costa Rica came from the battle between the
conservative church and the liberalizing state. The bishop of Costa Rica
criticized the European ideas that were becoming popular with the elite
and the politicians. The bishop was promptly expelled from the country
in 1884 and there was an official denouncement of an earlier
church-state agreement that had declared Catholicism the state religion.
The public outcry against these actions was minimal.
The new liberal
power was realized when for the first time in the history of Costa Rica
real public elections were held in Costa Rica. The liberals were
surprised when the opposition gained overwhelming support, and they
became victims of the very reforms they had implemented. When the
liberals tried to stop the new president from being recognized, 10,000
people flooded the streets. The people of Costa Rica obviously enjoyed
their new found political power. Since then Costa Rica's democratic
tradition has endured nearly unabated until today.
The 1948 Civil
War
Rafael Angel Calderón was the legally elected president between 1940
and 1944. He was a social reformer and many of his policies had a
positive affect on Costa Rica. He established the University of Costa
Rica, and initiated many social reforms including social security,
workers' rights to organize, land reform, guaranteed minimum wage, and
collective bargaining. The problems started though when, after his term
as president, Calderón ran a puppet candidate (Teodoro Picado) in an
election that was widely criticized as fraudulent. With this political
maneuver, Calderón had made enemies with the poor who originally had
supported him.
In the next
election Calderón himself ran against Otilio Ulate, who represented the
unified opposition. Ulate won the election but it was close, and was
contested by the government. Government forces refused to yield to Ulate,
and Teodoro Picado remained in power.
José María
Figueres led the opposition forces against the government. After 40 days
of civil war, during which more than 2000 people died, a negotiated
treaty was signed. Figueres took over as provisional president. He
governed for 18 months and executed some of the most important changes
in Costa Rican history including the prohibition of presidential
reelection, banning of communist labor unions and parties, abolition of
the army, the right to vote for women and blacks, and the establishment
of a neutral body that would oversee elections. All of Calderón's
social reforms were maintained. In 1949, Figueres turned the country
over to Ulate, the rightful president.
Figueres was
elected president two times. This was possible because of a law allowing
presidents to be reelected if not in consecutive terms. He was the only
person in Costa Rican history to have done it until 2006 when Oscar
Arias Sanchez returned to office. Figueres is recognized as
one of Costa Rica's greatest political figures and has achieved the
status of a national hero.
History Since
1948
Costa Rica continued its progressive social policies through the three
decades after 1948 and enjoyed a gradual upward economic trend. The
basic policy of the government in the decades after the 1970's was to
become more independent agriculturally, but this actually caused a heavy
dependence on imported goods needed for farming. Other problems were the
continuing drop in the prices of coffee, bananas, and sugar. Costa Rica
had also taken out loans to improve its infrastructure and when these
loans came due, Costa Rica could not pay and soon its economy was in
shambles. Magnifying the country's problems was the instability of
Nicaragua and Panama, which did nothing else but hurt Costa Rica. The
reputation of Central America as a place of violence and poverty stopped
much potential investment. Also, Costa Rica's status as one of the
wealthiest third world countries brought a flood of immigrants from its
two neighboring countries, taking jobs and money out of the country.
Oscar Arias was
elected president in 1986. One of his primary goals was to work for
peace in Central America. As is well known by now, Arias' efforts gained
him the 1987 Nobel Peace Prize. Many Costa Rican's have varying opinions
about Arias' job as president of Costa Rica, but his efforts in Central
America have certainly had a profound effect on the region's outlook.
Many Latin Americans feel that the wars that have shredded apart the
region have finally ended, and that this gives them the opportunity to
unite their futures in a new and profitable direction.
José María
Figueres was one of the youngest Presidents in history. He worked with a
group of elite, mostly foreign-educated experts who occupy governmental
posts. He promised to remedy the problems facing the poor, but the same
forces that have frustrated Costa Rica's economic programs for years are
undermining his. For years administrations have tried to implement the
"structural adjustment programs" recommended for Latin America
by international institutions . Though maintaining a relatively low
level of unemployment, the privatization of much of Costa Rica's public
sector, and the slashing of government jobs have recently caused some of
the bitterest strikes in Costa Rican history.
The public
infrastructure has deteriorated, from schools to roads, and the rural
and urban poor have felt that they are being ignored. Small farmers are
feeling the pain of monocrop plantations owned by wealthy corporations,
and what was once the heart of the Tico economy and lifestyle is
disappearing.
Miguel Angel Rodríguez took office
in mid-1998 and faced the same challenges as his predecessor.
In 2006 Oscar Arias was
reelected president in a close contest. Though he is popular from his
past work, he is in support of an international trade agreement that
many Tico's feel to be in conflict with their needs.
It is clear that change is necessary, but of course, the transition is
painful. Costa Rica is seen as an interesting test site for a Latin
American economy that is trying to make the transition to a globalized
world.
(Text and pictures on
this page were taken from a public domain source and modified by Michael
Dodson and Denny Genovese)
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HISTORY of PURISCAL
The Puriscal region was part of the indigenous zone known as Pacaqua, it was habited by the tribe called the Huetar and their main chief ( cacique ) was Coquiva. This whole sector of Costa Rica was ruled by the cacique Garabito, so the cacique Coquiva was under this central command as well.
Since those times, Puriscal has been an important cross-roads for the migration of those tribes from the northeast to the southwest of the country. After that Juan de Cavallon passed through these lands on his journey to the Central valley where he founded the "Garcimunoz outpost in what is now Santa Ana. During the
Colonialization of the country (from 1601), the famous "Camino de Mulas"
functioned to transport goods to and from Panama.
It is believed that the colonization of the area presently known as Puriscal began in 1815, by
families from the greater Central Valley ( areas now known as Alajualita, Tibas &
Desamparados ). In those days the Puriscal area was known as "Cola de Pavo" ( tail of the turkey ) thanks to the Retana brothers Jesus & Jorge who were some of the areas first residents / traders.
The actual name "Puriscal" came from the word purisco which refers to the short period that the frijole (bean) plant is in it's flowering stage. Puriscal was, in those days, famous for it's grand harvests of frijoles.
Throughout the years Puriscal has gained fame and respect for it's fertile soils and valient people...today is no different.
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