Costa Rica

>>2439228
?
Costa Rica is part of Central America, idiot.

>>2439558
Not culturally, and that's one of the points.

>>2439558
Been there for a couple of years. Culturally and even etnichally they are quite different from the rest of CA. A friend gave me a brief explanation, that goes like this:

CR was the poorest country of New Spain and they didnt even had money to buy that many slaves. Hacendados (or whatever the fuck you write that) actually had to work their lands themselves. I guess the fact that CA just didn't care about the backwater shit hole made them more independant (and they apperantly have a bit of a gudge over that. "Why should we give a shit about them when they didnt gave a shit about us?"). But this sounds more like an angry rant rather than an explanation.

>>2439228
This is from what I can half-remember from my "History of Central America" classes.

Costa Rica was sparsely populated back in independence days, as it was the frontier between the two viceroyalties of New Spain and Peru (later New Granada), which meant that education reforms were easier to implement at the closing of the 19th century and the population was, as a whole, more educated in the middle of the 20th.

Up to the 20th century, most of Central America was very uniform. It had economies centered on agriculture and and agrarian elite formed oligarchies that ruled over large peasant population. Marxist ideas were getting traction as far back as the 30s (maybe even earlier, but that's the time were actual communist parties started to form). To combat communism, military dictatorships would form and these would be in cahoots with the oligarchies to keep the status quo. During the Cold War, the US would support these same dictatorships (to the point of removing democratically elected leaders that were deemed too socialist) while the USSR would support communist uprisings.

This is where Costa Rica differed: The mass population was so well educated (in comparison to other Central American countries where education had barely reached the lowest classes, which were the most populous) that the US realized it wouldn't be able to keep a strong-arm military dictatorship in place (not for lack of trying). So instead, they backed a center leftist president whose name eludes me and the rest is history: social programs proved to work just as well in Costa Rica as they worked in Europe, and the lack of a civil war plus the more evenly educated population led to a more efficient government that would be able to avoid letting the country become a safe haven for drug trafficking (which is mostly what funds violence in other Central American states, along with poverty and still present social tensions between the poorest and the richest).

>>2441496
>and they didnt even had money to buy that many slaves
This is false. The presence of slaves was mostly kept regionally along the coasts of the Caribbean throughout all of Spanish America (from southern Mexico to Venezuela), which is also the regions where British and later American influence would be stronger. In Central America, the highest concentration of slaves was found on the British and Spanish Honduras (today's Belize and the Atlantic coasts of Honduras and Guatemala)

The Spanish weren't as keen on slave trade as the Brits and Portuguese to begin with, and they usually had enough natives to form working economies through normal economic exploitation (natives were rarely taken as slaves outright). That's not to say they took zero slaves, but slaves never became the backbone of the economy in the Spanish colonies like they did in the US or Brazil.

>>2439228
There was no roads linking them

>>2442603
The US didn't fuck with Costa Rica because they didn't have a military other than the US.

This means that a Cuba type situation where the gommies took over was basically impossible.

Also, none of those good old fashioned golpes militares

>>2442708
this
they're just a proxy us state since decades

>>2442695
This can't be stressed enough. Central America might looks small, but it's elongated and quite mountainous, leaving San Jose and Cartago somewhat isolated from the closest regional capitals of Bogota and Guatemala.

By contrast, the rest of Central America was quite linked even back in the day. Guatemala City and San Salvador, which were traditionally the two most influential cities in the region and are the current capitals of Guatemala and El Salvador, are quite close with no geographical barriers between them, while Tegucigalpa, Comayagua, Leon and Managua all fit comfortably within their periphery and are quite reachable by boat to boot. Panama was part of Colombia, so that was another beast from the beginning.

all of centro america is a shithole that deserves to be nuked. all the shitty islands too. except for cuba. cuba is alright.

>>2442888
anon speaks the truth

>>2439228

This is your first step to the realization that every other country that is not the USA have a different cultures than its neighbors.

The same apply to Europe, all Latin America, Oceania, Asia, and basically every nation.

>>2442888
>>2442902
t. Cuban.

Well, Im Costa Rican and after reading the other posts I can say this.

The Amerindians populations of CR are not Nahualts or Mesoamericans, they are Chibchas/Interamericans, they are way to different in terms of culture and look. This is one of the reasons of the cultural difference and in some part why we *look* different.

During the colony very few Spaniards came here, the ones who did came were way to poor, we got mostly Portuguese, Sephards and Italians. This of course had a influence in CR culture, who was different than anything north of us who got mostly Spaniards. Because of the "poverty" of the then province, there was not social or class differences based race, everybody was poor, because of this there was a lot of mixing between the different populations, producing a very "equal" and mixed people, this contrasting with the rest of New Spain or the Kingdom of Guatemala were the caste system was the norm and there was a big Amerindian populations, a big Spanish populations and very few mixed people.

Not going too much in too this, but yes, isolation. The first road between CR and Central America was the Inter American highway built in 1955. This isolation was actually enforced by the CR government, mainly to avoid the never ending conflicts and violence of Central America to reach the country.

After that, unlike the other Central American countries, CR kept receiving different immigrants groups from Europe and LA.

So only referring to culture and the people:

A - Isolation from the North

B - Different immigrants groups received by the country

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>>2439228
It didn't have America organisibg coups every 20 years

>>2442639
But it isn't false. The word "that many" implies that some actually buyed slaves from Jamaica. But most landlords didn't have enough money to buy them in masse.

You can actually find letters and writings about in books such as "El Costarricense". The slaves that were buyed remained in the caribbean costs and they were considered a luxury.

>>2444932
>costs
coasts. Fuck my life.

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>>2444932
>>2442639
What the hell are you talking about...

The Blacks of the coast of Central America (most of them from the Miskitos and others claim to be Zambos, but thats another story), from Nicaragua to Belice, while having different origins and what not, have nothing to do with Spanish America. Those territories while claimed by Spain were never under their control.

In the case of Costa Rica there was only one plantation ever planned, which of course needed the import of lots of Slaves. It was a Cocoa plantation located on territory that was never controlled by the Spaniards, and of course, ended as a failure because most Slaves were killed by the local Amerindians, the surviving ones being freed.

While there were not many Black Slaves in Costa Rica during colonial times, a lot of freed Slaves actually went to Costa Rica to live because they faced little to no discrimination there. There were many "important" Black populations in CR during the colony, and actually from them derives most of the Catholic traditions of CR. Yes, Slaves back then were considered a luxury, and no, they were not kept in the Caribbean region, the Spaniards never "conquered" or controlled that place, and the few Slaves that came were personal servants, not work force.

Today, 11% of CR's population is Black, being the Central American country with more % of its population being Black, but of course, said Blacks descend from Anglo Caribbeans who came to the country during the 19th and 20th to inhabit the almost lawless Caribbean coast of CR and then to work on the rail road and the establishment of what would be the first official settlements of CR in the region.

>>2443255
>Kingdom of Guatemala
Captaincy General of Guatemala*

god forbid we should ever be 20 years without such a rebellion

>>2444932
What I claimed that was false was that the difference came from being unable to buy many slaves. No country in Spanish America, particularly Central America, bought "many slaves", so that can't be a reason for the cultural differences.

>>2445530
The Spanish territories did buy some slaves, particularly early into the colonizing efforts, but stopped the practice and the extremely small black populations got bred out of existence.

But you're right, most blacks came later from British and American exploits in the Caribbean territory.

> the Spaniards never "conquered" or controlled that place
But they did, they just lost it to the Brits. Jamaica, Trinidad, and the Caribbean coasts of Central America (among with the Yucatan peninsula and the Gulf of Mexico) were among the first places the Spaniards landed on. But at that time, the trans-Atlantic slave trade wasn't yet a thing.

>>2445861
In that part I was referring only to CR, but

>But they did, they just lost it to the Brits

They never had or maintained big settlements there, but at the end of the day, the British were the first who actually got there and maintained their claim by force.

In the case of CR, the Spanish only conquered the Nicoya Península and the Central Valley of what is today CR, the rest was never conquered or controlled by them, being the most important regions of Native resistance the Northern Plains and Talamanca. The British never claimed or settled on CR's Caribbean coast, tho, but it was a fear that remained until the US - UK pact.


>>2445798
Captaincy General and Kingdom are accepted as interchangeable, but technically, the "Kingdom of Guatemala" includes the "General Captaincy of Guatemala", "the Royal Audience of Guatemala" and the different ecclesiastic provinces of the Catholic Church. For example, the different Captaincies of a Viceroyalty include the political - economic - military divisions known as provinces, in the case of the Captaincy General of Guatemala those would be Chiapas - Guatemala - El Salvador - Comaguaya (Honduras) - Nicaragua - Nueva Cartago (technically CR) - and the Mayor Audience of Nicoya, but the ecclesiastic provinces used by the Church didn't have to follow those divisions, for example, the Ecclesiastic Province of San Miguel and Nicaragua included Nicaragua, Nicoya and Cartago.

>>2445530
I dont see how what you said contradicts what that anon is saying.

>>2446693
The Spanish didn't have control of the Caribbean coast of CA, therefore, it wouldn't make sense to leave the Slaves there. The Caribbean coast of CA was British territory, the Blacks there descend from ones who lived under British rule or product of the British activity of the region, they have nothing to do with Spaniards.