History of Costa Rica

In 1502, on his last voyage to the New World, Christopher Columbus was the first European to visit Costa Rica. Settlement of Costa Rica by Spanish visitors began twenty years later in 1522. For nearly three centuries, Spain administered the region as part of their Captaincy General of Guatemala under a military governor. The Spanish called the country “Rich Coast.” When they found no gold or other valuable minerals in Costa Rica, most of them left for other destinations and the ones that stayed turned to agriculture as their means of living.

The relative poverty, the lack of a large indigenous labor force, the population’s ethnic and linguistic homogeneity, and Costa Rica’s isolation from the Spanish colonial centers in Mexico and the Andes all contributed to the development of an autonomous agrarian society In Costa Rica.

Costa Rica joined other Central American provinces in 1821 in a joint declaration of independence from Spain. Although the newly independent provinces formed a Federation, there were border disputes. Costa Rica’s northern Guanacaste Province was annexed from Nicaragua in such a regional dispute. In 1838, long after the Central American Federation practically stopped to function in practice, Costa Rica formally withdrew and proclaimed itself sovereign.

An era of peaceful democracy in Costa Rica began in 1899 with elections that were considered the first truly free and honest ones in the country’s history. This began a trend that continued until today with only two intervals: in 1917-19, When Federico Tinoco ruled as a dictator, and, in 1948, When Jose Figueres led an armed uprising in the rumour of a disputed presidential election.

With more than 2,000 dead, the 44-day civil war resulting from this uprising was the bloodiest event in relatively quiet 20th-century Costa Rican history, but the victorious junta drafted a constitution guaranteeing free elections with universal suffrage and the complete abolition of the military. Figueres became a national hero, winning the first election under the new constitution in 1953. Since then, Costa Rica has held 15 presidential elections, the latest in 2010.