Independence
The nineteenth century was the most significant era in the development of the modern nation state of Costa Rica. Initially, after 1821, when Central America declared independence from Spain, freedom made little difference to Costa Ricans. Although status as a republic was granted in the summer of 1823, the news did not reach Costa Rica until well into the autumn, when a mule messenger arrived from Nicaragua to tell the astonished citizens of Cartago the good news. A civil war promptly broke out among the inhabitants of the Valle Central, dividing the citizens of Alajuela and San Jose from those of Heredia and Cartago. This struggle for power was won by the Alajuela-San Jose faction, and San Jose became the capital city in 1823. Costa Rica made remarkable progress in the latter half of the nineteenth century, building roads, bridges, and railways and filling San Jose with neo-Baroque, Europeanate edifices. Virtually all this activity was fuelled by the coffee trade, bringing wealth that the settlers just a century earlier could hardly have dreamed of. Today high-grade export coffee is still popularly known as grano d'oro . The coffee bourgeoisie played a vital role in the cultural and political development of the country, and in 1848 the newly influential cafetaleros elected to the presidency their chosen candidate, Juan Rafael Mora. Extremely conservative and pro-trade, Mora came to distinguish himself in the battle against the American-backed filibusterer William Walker in 1856.
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