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The Origins of Costa Rican Federalism

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 December 2015

Thomas L. Karnes
Thomas L. Karnes*
Affiliation:
Tulane University, New Orleans, Louisiana
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Extract

The reluctance of Costa Rica to join in cooperative political action with her Central American neighbors has for more than a century been a dominant theme in the relations of these states with each other. Costa Rican separatism—a traditional withdrawal or aloofness from Central American political affairs—has been cited in most studies as a powerful factor in the repeated failure of the attemptsof these nations to create a single Central American Government. Always apart by reason of geography, and largely ignored by Spain, the Costa Ricans acquired strong feelings of exceptionality in late colónial times near the end of the eighteenth century. The basis of this attitude was the conviction that they were being badly treated by other Central American provinces, Guatemala and Nicaragua in particular, who in various ways were responsible for Costa Rican administration. In the few years remaining before independence the Costa Rican distrust was substantially increased by Central American and international events. Independence in 1821 intensified this separatism and grossly compounded it by freeing the forces of localism in individual towns and villages.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Americas , Volume 15 , Issue 3 , January 1959 , pp. 249 - 269
Copyright
Copyright © Academy of American Franciscan History 1959

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References

1 Facio, Rodrigo, Trayectoria y Crisis de la Federación Centroamericana (San José, C.R., 1949);Google Scholar Chapman, Charles E., “The Failure of Central American Union,” Review of Reviews, 66 (December, 1922), 613–617;Google Scholar Slade, William F., “The Federation of Central America,” Journal of Race Development, 8 (July and October, 1917), 79–150, 204–275;CrossRefGoogle Scholar Munro, Dana G., The Five Republics of Central America (New York, 1918), p. 177 Google Scholar and unpublished diss. (Stanford, 1952) by Karnes, Thomas L., “Attempts to Confederate the States of Central America,” p. 240.Google Scholar

2 The population was estimated at 25,000 for Costa Rica in 1788. Herrarte, Alberto, La Unión de Centroamérica (Guatemala, 1955), p. 106.Google Scholar

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8 Fernández, , Historia, p. 471 Google Scholar and Facio, , Trayectoria, p. 27.Google Scholar The reports of the governors of Costa Rica regularly described this poverty.

9 Fernández, León, Collectión de Documentos para la Historia de Costa Rica (10 vols.; Barcelona, 1881–1907), X, 193.Google Scholar

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11 Guardia, Fernández, Cartilla, p. 46.Google Scholar

12 The most desired leaves were grown in the regions of Copán and Istepeque. The tobacco junta felt that Costa Rica had not benefitted greatly; furthermore, no one area could supply the needs of all of the Guatemala “kingdom.” Fernández, , Colección de Documentos, 10, 255.Google Scholar

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16 Facio, , Trayectoria, p. 27.Google Scholar Traditionally the Guatemalan “oligarchy” is blamed for this attitude. While it had its own interests, it seems unlikely that the oligarchy deliberately sought the impoverishment of the Costa Ricans. But Costa Rican writers like to point out that in colonial times Guatemala regularly opposed all measures for the well-being of Costa Rica.

17 Haring, , Spanish Empire, p. 342.Google Scholar

18 A provisional contract of 1794 called for the delivery in Lima of 100,000 pounds of Costa Rican tobacco. Fernández, , Collección de Documentos, 10, 268.Google Scholar

19 All of the western colonial powers relied upon tobacco as a significant source of revenue using the crown monopoly as the most remunerative system. But as can be seen in the Costa Rican experience, this plan generated animosity among the colonials. Spain had long wanted to utilize the method but feared the effect of its introduction in America. The costs of the Seven Years’ War made a new and substantial source of income urgent. It is interesting to compare the British-American developments of the same era. On the introduction of the monopoly in Spanish colonies see Priestley, Herbert I., José de Gálvez (Berkeley, 1916), pp. 142–143.Google Scholar See also Von Humboldt, Alexander, Personal Narrative of Travels to the Equinoctial Regions of America (3 vols.; London, 1871–2), 1, 224–225.Google Scholar Humboldt reported that the “odious monopoly” was introduced into some parts of Spanish America in 1779, but he does not specify where. He estimated that the farmer received one-fourth of the amount that the government charged the consumer. Peralta wirtes that the estanco was created in Costa Rica in 1766. Peralta, , Peralta, p. 30.Google Scholar

20 Fernández, , Colección de Documentos, 10, 325.Google Scholar These documents would indicate that the legal price charged the consumer was about ten times that paid by the factories to the farmers.

21 Ironically tobacco revenues were expected to pay the transportation costs of the Costa Rican delegates to the Cortes. Florencio del Castillo to the Ayuntamiento of Cartago, October 18, 1810, Archivos Nacionales, San José (cited hereafter as ANCR), Sección Histórica, No. 336.

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25 Leon Fernández declared that Nicaraguans have had a long standing antipatía toward Costa Rica. Historia, p. 492.

26 Ayón, , Nicaragua, 3, 412.Google Scholar See also Salvatierra, Sofonías, Contribución a la Historia de Centroamérica (2 vols.; Managua, 1939), II, 349.Google Scholar

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30 In particular see Peralta, Hernán G., Agustín de lturbide y Costa Rica (San José, 1944)Google Scholar and Guardia, Ricardo Fernández, La Independencia y Otros Episodios (San José, 1928)Google Scholar for detailed accounts of these events.

31 Marure, Alejandro, Bosquejo histórico de las revoluciones de Centro-América (Guatemala, 1895), p. 76.Google Scholar

32 A different thesis is to be found in Peralta, , Peralta, pp. 174–181,Google Scholar to the effect that Spanish institutions had grown and thrived more in Costa Rica than elsewhere in Central America, making the Costa Ricans different and politically more advanced than their neighbors.

33 The reader is reminded that in these same months the San Salvadoreans were annexing themselves to the United States in a pitiful bid to settle their political future.

34 Pablo Alvarado to Ayuntamiento of Cartago, September 22, 1821, ANCR, Provincia Independente, No. 76.

35 Pablo Alvarado to Ayuntamiento of San José, September 22, 1821, ANCR, Provincia Independente, No. 1294.

36 In spite of this he was in March, 1822, named Costa Rica’s alternate delegate to Mexico’s constituent congress. Guardia, Fernández, La Independencia, p. 46.Google Scholar

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39 Joaquín Oreamuno to Gavino de Gainza, February 15, 1822. Archivo Nacional of Guatemala, legajo 3459.

40 Zeledón, , Digesta, p. 9, article 19.Google Scholar

41 José María Carreño to Junta of Cartago, April 16, 1822, ANCR, Provincia Independente, No. 189.

42 Pablo Alvarado to Gobierno Superior of Costa Rica, November 3, 1823, ANCR, Provincia Independente, No. 1125.

43 Ibid., February 5, 1824, ANCR, Provincia Independente, No. 1074.

44 Chamorro, Pedro Joaquín, Historia de la Federación de la América Central (Madrid, 1951), pp. 81–91.Google Scholar