“MARIMBA POR TÍ ME MUERO”: REGION AND NATION IN COSTA RICA, 1824-1939 by Soili Iiris Buska Submitted to the faculty of the University Graduate School in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree Doctor of Philosophy in the Department of History Indiana University March 2006 Accepted by the Graduate Faculty, Indiana University, in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. ______________________________________ Jeffrey L. Gould, Ph.D., Chairperson ______________________________________ Peter Guardino, Ph.D. Doctoral Committee _______________________________________ Daniel James, Ph.D. ______________________________________ Víctor Hugo Acuña Ortega, Ph.D. December 16, 2005 ii © (2005) Soili Iiris Buska ALL RIGHTS RESERVED iii Acknowledgements Many people and institutions made this dissertation possible. The Department of History of Indiana University provided me with financial support and graduate appointments from the start of my studies in Bloomington. The pre-dissertation grant and research fellowship from the Office of International Programs and the University Graduate School of Indiana University respectively helped me to define my project and to begin the research. The Indiana University Bloomington Library staff and the History Department Staff in IU Bloomington were of greatest help. History Department Graduate Secretary Alexia Bock assisted in many ways and gave me crucial practical advice during my stay in Bloomington. The Center for Latin American Studies of the University of Pittsburgh's University Center for International Studies generously opened its doors to me in the summer of 2005. The Escuela de Historia, Centro de Investigaciones Históricas de America Central (CIHAC), and the Oficina de Asuntos Internacionales y Cooperación Externa (OAICE) of the Universidad de Costa Rica have all participated in making possible research and writing of this dissertation. The director Ana Sittenfeld and the staff of the OAICE Fátima Acosta, Yamileth Damazio, Odeth Esquivel, and Patricia Alfaro went above and beyond the call of duty. The dedicated personal of both the Archivo Nacional de Costa Rica (ANCR) and Hemeroteca de la Biblioteca Nacional de Costa Rica (BN) helped me access necessary sources for my research; special thanks to Rocío Vallecillo and Xinia Trejos from the ANCR and Leticia Castro from the BN for their help. iv I am endlessly grateful to my generous dissertation committee. The open-handed collaboration of Daniel James and Peter Guardino encouraged and facilitated enormously my work and made it possible for me to finish writing. Víctor Hugo Acuña inspired me with his insightful questions and comments on my drafts, and managed to make me to believe in the relevance of this study for the history of Costa Rica. My tolerant and understanding adviser Jeffrey Gould maintained his faith in my abilities even when I did not respond in the way he might have expected. I am grateful for all of their comments and support and sorry not to be able to answer all of their questions nor do justice to their suggestions at this stage of my research. Hopefully I will be able to provide more answers over time, as their provocative queries have inspired me to continue this research in order to go deeper into the many questions my dissertation has generated. During the dissertation process I was lucky to receive the advice, comments, and support of many professors, colleagues, and friends. Arturo Taracena stands responsible for having initially inspired me to study Guanacaste. My dear friend Victoria González provided me useful practical advice and moral support since the first moment I met her almost ten years ago in Bloomington. David Díaz Arias kindly read and commented on various drafts of this text, enriching my ideas also in conversations that took place by email and later in person in Bloomington. My friends in Finland, Merja Hanhela, Sirpa Kuosmanen, Marjatta Nieminen, Jussi Pakkasvirta, Markku Uusiniemi, and Elina Vuola may not exactly know what I have been up to all these years, but their caring support has been vital to keep me going. While sharing her experience of working on her own dissertation on the other side of the Atlantic, Florencia Quesada commented on parts of this text and provided invaluable moral support. I want to thank David Díaz, Ethel v García, Ana Cecilia Román, Carmen Fallas, Mercedes Muñoz, Víctor Hugo Acuña, and Fernando Zeledón for their comments on a chapter of this thesis and for the rewarding discussions during the sessions of our Research Program “Estado, Nación e Identidades en América Central” in the CIHAC. I also want to thank the directors of the CIHAC, Elizabeth Fonseca, Rina Cáceres, and Ronny Viales, and the director of Posgrado Centroamericano en Historia, Juan José Marín, for looking out for my well-being during the completion of my dissertation. The director of Escuela de Historia, Francisco Enríquez, the staff of the Escuela, Marielos Jiménez, Lorena Orozco and Patricia Vargas; Eugenia Rojas at the CIHAC and Patricia Sequeira in the Posgrado Centroamericano en Historia have all through their administrative efforts assisted in the completion of my thesis. Thanks also to Arlene Díaz, Luis González, Ellie Gould, Kevin Coleman, Jeremy John, Oscar Rivera, Valeria Manzano, Mauro Pasqualini, Jolanta Mickute, Stephen Andrews, Carolina Valverde, Yossy-Gil Muñoz, Felicia Camacho, Ana Paulina Malavassi, Carmela Velásquez, Ana María Botey, Ligia Sobrado, Federico Sobrado París, Eugenia Rodríguez Sáenz, Iván Molina, and Carlos Granados, who in different ways—providing conversations, materials, lodging, equipment, and advice—contributed to this process. Lara Putnam’s humanitarian aid has been crucial for my dissertation research and writing. Her gentle but incisive questions at the early stage of my project; her enthusiastic encouragement during the period of research and writing; the invaluable advice, hospitality, lodging, meals, and all kinds of support she has provided during so many years, made me believe in the possibilities of my project and gave me the security vi to continue. I am unable to find words enough to thank her for being such a marvelous mentor and friend. I am also in debt to the entire Pérez Putnam family: Mario, and the kids Miriam, Gabriel, and Alonso, who patiently cooperated with this project (among other things, insistently reminding their mother it was time to get back to copyediting “Soili’s thesis”). Naturally none of the above mentioned people are responsible of the faults and shortcomings of this thesis. The only one to blame is me. Thanks to my father, Pentti, and mother, Silja Impi, for tolerating their daughter´s absence without complaining. My mother, although she cannot imagine what is it that her daughter has been doing all these years, should know that I would have not been able to reach this point without the example of persistence and tenacity she instilled in me since I was a little girl. Kiitos, äiti. Finally, Gilbert Muñoz Salazar has admirably and patiently allowed me and my dissertation to disrupt several years of his life and personal plans. He was commendably willing to endure long separations and to accompany me to places that were not part of his desired itinerary. For years and probably without noticing it he has taught me to read “against the grain” the world in which we live, and critically and creatively to approach the issues of social and political analysis. Gracias, Gil. vii Soili Iiris Buska “MARIMBA POR TÍ ME MUERO”: REGION AND NATION IN COSTA RICA, 1824-1939 Analyzing regional identity construction in the peripheral northwestern Costa Rican province of Guanacaste, and the creation of regionalist discourse and political organization in Costa Rica from the early twentieth century to 1939, this dissertation studies the historical dynamics between region and nation. The concept of region employed here is not focused on an economic, geographical, or historical entity but understood primarily as a space and a community imagined by the promoters of regionalism and by the intellectuals and politicians of the country’s administrative center. The primary sources used in the dissertation are mainly government documents and newspapers. The principal vehicle in the creation of the imagined region and regional identity was the regionalist newspaper, which became the organ of the regionalist movement and the political party. The discourse of regionalist publicists emphasized harmony, unity, and class conciliation in the province, a construction that served to mask the conflictive social relations in the region and thus benefited the interests of the regional elites. Political regionalism in the form of a regionalist party that competed in national elections had a brief heyday in the late 1930s, but did not endure, as the Costa viii Rican political system made the transition from a liberal to a reformist/welfare state model beginning in the 1940s. _____________________________________________ Jeffrey L. Gould, Ph.D., Chairperson _____________________________________________ Peter Guardino, Ph.D. _____________________________________________ Daniel James, Ph.D. _____________________________________________ Víctor Hugo Acuña Ortega, Ph.D. ix Table of Contents Introduction 1 Chapter 1 16 Guanacaste before Liberal Progress: From Pre-Hispanic Times to Postcolonial Struggles over the State Chapter 2 78 Progress Produces Backwardness: The Liberal State and the Province of Guanacaste Chapter 3 119 The Emergence