since the days when the golden dreams of the conquistadores were brought 
to a disappointed close by the geological fact that quantities of easily accessible 
gold were not to be found in the land. 
The first town to he founded in Costa Rica by the Spanish was that of 
Bruselas, near the present site of Puntarenas on the Pacific coast. This 
settlement, destined to remain for the short period of three years, was estab¬ 
lished by Francisco Fernandez de Cordoba, lieutenant-in-charge of an expedi¬ 
tion sent out in 1524 by Pedrarias Davila, then governor of the colonial 
possession known as Darien, or Panama. Early in 1540, Hernan Sanchez de 
Badajoz, named adelantado of Costa Rica by the president of the audlencia 
at Panama, founded the city of Badajoz and the port of San Marco. These 
early “towns”, however, were hardly more than outposts and none of them 
lasted for any time; they were merely tentative settlements, the precursors of 
Spanish authority to be established in the land. The first really important 
center of Spanish population in Costa Rica, which has lasted to the present 
day, was the city of Cartago, established in 1564 by Vazquez de Coronado, a 
prototype of the humane and magnanimous conquistador, who probably more 
than any other advanced by peaceful means the conquest of the region. For 
the use of the colonists in these small settlements, livestock, including horses, 
cattle and swine, was introduced by the Ucenciado Juan de Cavallon in 1561, 
the first conquistador to make active gains in the conquest. 
The last of the Spanish conquerors in Costa Rica was Perafan de Ribera, 
who consolidated the work of his predecessors and, in 1569, established the 
notorious encomienda system in Costa Rica by dividing the Indians into groups, 
each group being owned by a conquistador or his heirs. The encomienda 
was somewdiat similar to the slavery system operating in the southern United 
States before the Civil War; the natives worked the land for the benefit of the 
dueiio , or owner, in return for which they were provided a bare subsistence. 
After the conquest, Costa Rica (“Rich Coast”; so-called by the inhabitants 
of Nicaragua of those times to distinguish the region from that claimed by 
Columbus as his personal property and known as “Veragua”) became a prov¬ 
ince of the Captaincy-General of Guatemala, which included seven other 
provinces: Guatemala, Chiapas, Verapaz, Soconusco, San Salvador, Honduras 
and Nicaragua. The capital of the Captaincy-General was at Guatemala 
City. Previously it had been in Panama and Honduras. The governors of 
Costa Rica lived in Cartago, then the capital of the province. Exercising 
political, military and judicial authority, they were appointed for a period of 
five years at a salary of tw T o thousand pesos annually. The cities within the 
province were governed by cabildos, or councils, which offices were subject 
to purchase and sale. 
Fhe people of Costa Rica, during the entire colonial period of about tw T o 
and a half centuries (1570-1821), had to face extreme hardship and danger. 
6 
Both Costa Rican coasts were continually ravaged by the raids of the Mosquito 
Indians of Nicaragua on the one hand, and by the devastating attacks of the 
English and Dutch pirates on the other. These raids, however, were 
secondary; perhaps the greatest burden which the courageous Costa Ricans 
of that era had to bear was the stagnating effect of the Spanish mercantile 
policy pursued in the New World, which prevented an exchange of goods 
between either the colonies themselves or between the colonies and any nation 
but Spain. Deprived of obtaining goods from the outside and consequently 
dependent upon what they could raise and import from Spain, these early 
pioneers were, for the most part, poverty-stricken. Conditions were so bad 
by 1707 that in that year the governor at Cartago authorized the use of cocoa 
beans for money. Nevertheless, the population of the province increased, 
although slowly, and by the time independence from Spain was won, the 
inhabitants numbered 50,000. 
When, on September 15, 1821, the independence of the Central American 
States was declared at Guatemala City, the news was received with great joy 
cataracts of the caracho and poas rivers 
Waterfalls are only one of the many natural beauties of Costa Rica which are of 
special interest and charm. 
7 
