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The Development of Foreign Trade and Communication in Costa Rica to the Construction of the First Railway

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 December 2015

Richard J. Houk
Richard J. Houk*
Affiliation:
De Paul University, Chicago, Illinois
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Extract

The poorest, the most abandoned, the most isolated of the Spanish possessions in North America was the province of Costa Rica. Despite valiant efforts made by the royal governors to build roads and to stimulate the production of items for export, the colonial history of the nation indicates a vegetating and unstimulated economy. The smallest settlements made by the Spaniards were scattered throughout the country, and the greatest concentration of population was in the fertile Meseta Central, which had no easy access to the sea. All of the early settlers were “miserably poor with no prospect of finding mines to bring them quick wealth, no export crop in demand in world markets, and no means of bringing such a crop to the coast had it existed.”

Type
Research Article
Information
The Americas , Volume 10 , Issue 2 , October 1953 , pp. 197 - 209
Copyright
Copyright © Academy of American Franciscan History 1953

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References

1 Jones, Chester Lloyd, “Costa Rica and Civilization in the Caribbean,” University of Wisconsin Studies in the Social Sciences and History, Number 23, p. 21.Google Scholar

2 Facio, Rodrigo, Estudio Sobre Economia Costarricense (San Jose, 1942), pp. 12–13.Google Scholar

3 Jones, op. cit., p. 25.

4 Facio, op. cit., p. 14.

5 Guell, Tomás Soley, Compendio de Historia Económica y Hacendaria de Costa Rica (San Jose, 1941), pp. 28–29.Google Scholar

6 Hale, John, “Seis Meses de Residencia y Viajes en Centro América, Etc.,” in Guardia, Ricardo Fernández, Costa Rica en el Siglo XIX (San Jose, 1929), pp. 27–28.Google Scholar

7 Facio, op. cit., p. 23.

8 Quesada, Alberto Quijano, Costa Rica Ayer y Hoy (San Jose, 1939), p. 453.Google Scholar

9 Ibid., p. 454.

10 Facio, op. cit., p. 23.

11 Soley Guell, op. cit., p. 45.

12 Ibid., p. 45.

13 John L. Stephens, “Incidentes de Viaje en Centro América,” in Fernández Guardia, op. cit., p. 44.

14 Felix Belly, “Através de la América Central,” in Fernández Guardia, op. cit., p. 483.

15 Anthony Trollope, “Las Indias Occidentales y el Continente Español,” in Fernández Guardia, op. cit., p. 405.

16 Francisco Solano Astaburuaga, “Repúblicas de Centro América,” in Fernández Guardia, op. cit., p. 259.

17 Wilhelm Marr, “Viaje a Centro-América,” in Fernández Guardia, op. cit., pp. 112–115.

18 Ibid., p. 112.

19 Squier, op. cit., p. 234.

20 Quijano Quesada, op. cit., p. 581.

21 Belly, op. cit., pp. 471–472.