What happened in Costa Rica? Part III
A historical review of Costa Rica tries to catch some moments of history: uncomplete and selected windows of time. In this part: Costa Rica’s independence
In 1821, the winds of independence had blown in from the north. The United States of America and Mexico had won their independence recently and in the capital of the Captaincy General of Guatemala, Guatemala City, protests broke out demanding independence. On September 15th, 1821 they declared their independence from the Spanish Empire. At the time, several present-day Mexican states and most of the Central American countries belonged to the Captaincy, in order to send the news to all the states, a horse messenger was sent down through Central America.
Because Costa Rica was the southernmost province, it finally received the news of its independence on October 13th, 1821. The fact that not a single gunshot was fired to obtain its independence marked Costa Rica as a peace-loving nation. Among the independence documents received from Guatemala there was a document prepared in Nicaragua. This document is called “Los Nublados del Dia” which, in Spanish, means the “Clouds of the Day”. In this document the Nicaraguan government, which was far more developed at the time and therefore closer to colonial rule, insisted that the states should not jump into independence and should wait for the “clouds of the day” to disperse before the states should make a final decision. However, because this document only reached Costa Rica, it had little effect.
After gaining independence, Costa Rica, along with the other provinces of the Captaincy, briefly joined the Mexican Empire. But because of the distance to the Mexican capital and other underlying conflicts, the Central American states including Costa Rica became federal states of the United Provinces of Central America from 1823 to 1839. In 1838 Costa Rica proclaimed itself a sovereign and independent nation.
In 1856 the Costa Rican army joined forces with the other Central American nations to expel an invasion, commanded by William Walker. In the battles of Santa Rosa, Rivas and the San Juan campaign, the filibuster army was deterred from invading Costa Rica. In the Battle of Rivas, Juan Santamaría bravely set the place where the invaders had taken refuge on fire and thus became Costa Rica’s National Hero.
(via Wikipedia)
Read part 1 and part 2 of this series.
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