Costa Rica´s Best Guide Online Magazine

I For the annexation to take place, there were many determining factors that include geographical realities, political ties, historical situations and socioeconomic contexts, where the proximity and commercial activity of Nicoya with the port of Puntarenas was a determining element. But there were also realities within the same populations that made up the party, which influenced the decision, since there were also technical, socioeconomic and cultural differences between two dissimilar groups that made up the party's population: the non-annexationists, formed by a core of large cattle ranchers, descendants of Spaniards, with close ties to Nicaragua. Opposed to this traditionalist and powerful circle, the annexationist group, made up of indigenous people, ladinos and mestizos, was numerically superior, with a great affinity between them, with a closed economy and common deficiencies, who saw in the annexation to Costa Rica a solution to many of these deficiencies. Due to its geographical location, the Nicoya district maintained continuous and very close commercial relations with Costa Rica, on which it depended for certain administrative matters, and for other matters, it depended on Nicaragua. In very important administrative matters, it had direct recourse to the Audiencia of Guatemala. The three main towns of the district at the time of the annexation were: Nicoya, Santa Cruz and Guanacaste (now Liberia). The bases of the annexation of the Nicoya district to Costa Rica have very deep roots in the past. Although Nicoya's ties with Nicaragua were always very close, Costa Rica was not alien to this connection.