Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
New World Order
It was not until the 1560s that a Spanish colony was firmly established in Costa Rica. Hop-
ing to cultivate the rich volcanic soil of the Central Valley, the Spanish founded the village
of Cartago on the banks of the Río Reventazón. Although the fledgling colony was ex-
tremely isolated, it miraculously survived under the leadership of its first governor, Juan
Vásquez de Coronado. Some of Costa Rica's demilitarized present was presaged in its
early colonial government: preferring diplomacy over firearms to counter the indigenous
threat, Coronado used Cartago as a base to survey the lands south to Panama and west to
the Pacific, and secured deed and title over the colony.
Though Coronado was later lost in a shipwreck, his legacy endured: Costa Rica was an
officially recognized province of the Viceroyalty of New Spain (Virreinato de Nueva
España), which was the name given to the viceroy-ruled territories of the Spanish empire
in North America, Central America, the Caribbean and Asia.
For roughly three centuries, the Captaincy General of Guatemala (also known as the
Kingdom of Guatemala), which included Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Honduras, El Salvador,
Guatemala and the Mexican state of Chiapas, was a loosely administered colony in the
vast Spanish empire. Since the political and military headquarters of the kingdom were in
Guatemala, Costa Rica became a minor provincial outpost that had little if any strategic
significance or exploitable riches.
As a result of its status as a swampy, largely useless backwater, Costa Rica's colonial
path diverged from the typical pattern in that a powerful landholding elite and slave-based
economy never gained prominence. Instead of large estates, mining operations and coastal
cities, modest-sized villages of smallholders developed in the interior Central Valley. Ac-
cording to national lore, the stoic, self-sufficient farmer provided the backbone for 'rural
democracy' as Costa Rica emerged as one of the only egalitarian corners of the Spanish
empire.
Equal rights and opportunities were not extended to the indigenous groups and, as Span-
ish settlement expanded, the local population decreased dramatically. From 400,000 at the
time Columbus first sailed, the population was reduced to 20,000 a century later, and to
8000 a century after that. While disease was the main source of death, the Spanish were re-
lentless in their effort to exploit the natives as an economic resource. Central Valley groups
were the first to fall, though outside the valley several tribes managed to survive a bit
