Costa Rica

Human habitation of Costa Rica dates from at least 5000 BC, but in comparison with the great civilizations of pre-Columbian America the Native Americans of Costa Rica were neither numerous nor highly developed. When confronted by Spanish soldiers and missionaries, they resisted violently. Those who did not succumb to the epidemics that swept over the isthmus either died fighting or fled to remote areas. The Colonial Period Christopher Columbus sailed along Costa Rica's Caribbean shore in 1502 and gave it its name ("rich coast"). Spanish conquest, however, came later than in most of the rest of Central America, delayed by the hostility of the natives and the absence of obvious wealth. After Juan de Cavallón led the first successful colonizers into Costa Rica in 1561, Juan Vásquez de Coronado followed from 1562 to 1565 with the establishment of Cartago and other settlements in the central valley, where most of the population is still concentrated. Within the kingdom of Guatemala (in the viceroyalty of Mexico, called New Spain) from 1570 forward, Costa Rica was principally a small dependency of Nicaragua throughout its colonial period. Such circumstances as its remoteness from Guatemala City and its lack of wealth allowed it to develop with less direct interference and regulation than the other provinces of Central America. Costa Rica's relative obscurity gave it some of its unique characteristics. The Europeans were unable to subjugate a sedentary native population, nor could they afford to import African slaves, as was done in areas of more apparent commercial agricultural or mining potential. Costa Ricans consequently turned to subsistence farming on small land grants, without the extremes of wealth and poverty that characterized so much of Latin America. Government and church officials were fewer than in the centers of authority and production. Thus, Costa Rica played only a minor role in the kingdom of Guatemala, and it developed to a large degree apart from the mainstream of Latin American history. It was first in the late 18th century, when Spanish emphasis on commercial agriculture led to the growth of tobacco as a major export, that the colony became of some importance to the Guatemalan authorities. Nationhood Tobacco exports promoted the growth of a more prosperous society, and Costa Ricans became prominent in the intellectual and political life of Central America in the early 19th century. When Spanish rule ended in 1821, the country became part of Mexico until 1823, and then part of the United Provinces of Central America, from 1824 to 1838. However, it avoided involvement in the civil wars that plagued the latter federation. Costa Rican politics reflected the liberal-conservative ideologies found elsewhere in Latin America, with the towns of Cartago, San José, Heredia, and Alajuela vying for leadership. San José gained ascendancy, but the most important development of the mid-19th century was the growth of coffee as the major export. Under the conservative dictatorship (1849-1859) of J. Rafael Mora, Costa Rica took the lead in organizing Central American resistance against William Walker, the U.S. adventurer who took over Nicaragua in 1855. After a bloodless coup ousted Mora in 1859, liberal domination followed, notably under Tomás Guardia. During his tenure (1870-1882), Costa Rica became committed to heavy foreign investment in railroads and other public improvements. The banana empire created by the U.S. businessman Minor Keith became the United Fruit Company in 1899. United developed the lowland coasts and built railroads and other communications, but it also made Costa Rica more dependent on foreign markets and capital. Democracy and Stable Government Although late 19th- and early 20th-century Costa Rican politics had its share of irregularities, the clear trend was away from military solutions toward a more orderly political process. Costa Ricans took pride in having more teachers than soldiers and a higher standard of living than elsewhere in Central America. Coffee remained the mainstay of the economy, but a growing urban middle class began to challenge the political control of the coffee elite with more modern political parties. The reformist National Republican Party (Partido Republicano Nacional, or PRN) won the presidency with León Cortes Castro in 1936 and again in 1940 with Rafael Angel Calderón Guardia. When the PRN attempted to continue in power after defeat in 1948, a new political force, the National Liberation Party (Partido de Liberación Nacional, or PLN), led by José Figueres Ferrer, overthrew it and became the country's dominant party, a position it has since retained. Under moderate governments, Costa Rica became Latin America's most democratic country. Figueres served as president from 1952 to 1958 and again from 1970 to 1974. The PLN won the presidency in 1974 with Daniel Oduber, but differences between him and Figueres, along with economic troubles, brought an opposition coalition headed by Rodrigo Carazo Odio to power in 1978. Costa Rica experienced rapid population growth and consequent strains on its economy in the early 1980s. The PLN returned to power in 1982, when Luis Alberto Monge Alvarez was elected president; he was succeeded by Oscar Arias Sánchez, also of the PLN, in 1986. During the late 1980s Arias tried to win consensus among Central American leaders for a plan to bring peace and stability to the region. Rafael A. Calderón, Jr., son of former president Rafael Calderón, won the presidential election of February 1990, running as the candidate of the Social Christian Unity Party. In February 1994 José María Figueres Olsen of the PLN was elected president. Figueres is the son of former president José Figueres Ferrer.