Every July 25, Costa Rica commemorates the Annexation of the Partido de Nicoya with food, dancing, music, and official ceremonies. But although the celebrations have been held for more than 50 years, Costa Rican historians believe that the official version of this patriotic holiday contains several errors, starting with the name itself.
Arnaldo Rodríguez Espinoza, a historian at the State Distance Learning University, reviewed primary sources from the National Archives of Costa Rica covering the period 1824–1956 to understand how the decision to join Costa Rican territory came about. In 2015, he published his first study casting doubt on one of the country’s most iconic dates.
“Union”, “incorporation”
According to his review, neither the term “annexation” nor the verb “to annex” appears in any of the four pages of the original minutes dated July 25, 1824. Documents from that period refer to “union” and, later, “incorporation.”
The term also does not appear in the invitation that the Costa Rican government sent to the towns of Nicoya, Santa Cruz, and Villa Guanacaste in March 1824, nor in the Federal Congress’s decree of December 1825, nor in the subsequent ratifications of 1834, 1835, and 1838.
According to Rodríguez Espinoza’s reconstruction, the word “annexation” was used imprecisely in the second half of the 20th century, though its origin remains unclear.
The term “annexation” does not appear in the “Act of Annexation”; instead, other terms such as “aggregation” or “incorporation” were used.
Sources from that period reveal that the term was never used even once, and that, ironically, we refer to the document dated July 25, 1824, as the ‘Act of Annexation,’” the researcher reiterated in an interview with La Voz.
Antonio Pizarro Zelaya, also a historian and scholar at the University of Costa Rica, supported this view in a study published earlier this year.
Pizarro interviewed Luis Fernando Sibaja, a historian, retired academic, and one of the leading authorities on the Annexation of the Partido de Nicoya. When asked about the origin of the word, the distinguished scholar attributed it to diplomat Felipe Molina, the first writer to document the history of the Annexation in 1850 and 1851. As Costa Rica’s ambassador, he participated in the dispute over territorial boundaries between the two countries.
It is possible, he argued, that Molina borrowed the term because it was in vogue in the United States at that time, following the annexation of Texas in 1845 and the conflict with Mexico.
Historian Pizarro Zelaya asserts in his publication that this is not merely a simple term, since at the time—both in the case of Texas and in the annexation of Austria by Nazi Germany—there was a process of violence.
He then points out that using this word for a process that the official narrative describes as free, peaceful, and democratic is contradictory.
The decision to annex was made by the 25 signatories of the act of incorporation, although Antonio Rodríguez noted that 44% of them belonged to a single extended family, the Viales Briceños, who had dominated the Nicoya City Council for years.
Those 25 people represented nearly 4,500 people—the total population of the Partido de Nicoya at that time.
The Partido de Nicoya integrated into Costa Rica in 1824, but at that time Costa Rica was not yet an independent country.
Yes, the Partido de Nicoya was part of Nicaragua, historians assert
One of the most traditional civic activities to commemorate the Annexation is the Nicoya City Council session, which reenacts the discussion and vote that made the Partido de Nicoya Costa Rican territory.
However, both Arnaldo Rodríguez and Antonio Pizarro asserted in their research that this was not a single, definitive act, but rather a process that had to be ratified on at least nine occasions, until it was resolved in the Cañas-Jerez Treaty of 1858 and, specifically, until the border was demarcated in 1900—seven decades later.
To provide some context, prior to Independence in 1821, the Central American territory belonged to the Captaincy General of Guatemala, which reported directly to the Spanish crown. A few decades earlier, in 1786, by Royal Decree of King Charles III, the colonial administration was reorganized through the system of intendancies, and Nicoya became a district within the Intendancy of Nicaragua.
Following the declaration of independence, Central America briefly joined the Mexican Empire between 1821 and 1824. Subsequently, the Central American Federal Republic was established, and it was not until 1838 that both Nicaragua and Costa Rica seceded from the Federation and became independent states in their own right.
According to Pizarro, on July 4, 1824, the Nicoya town council initially rejected Costa Rica’s invitation, citing loyalty to Nicaragua, as documented in the archives reviewed by Pizarro Zelaya. However, three weeks later, they changed their stance, and the incorporation process began.
Pizarro shows how Felipe Molina, the diplomat credited with coining the term “Annexation,” established the notion that the territory of the Partido de Nicoyat had never been Nicaraguan, even though documents from that period provided evidence to the contrary. This version was repeated from the mid-19th century through official discourses of the 20th century. Even when it was called into question in the 1970s, it continued to be reproduced in school history textbooks.
Pizarro argues that part of Costa Rica’s national identity is built on opposition to Nicaragua. According to Pizarro, Felipe Molina himself described Nicaragua in his writings from 1850 and 1851 as an anarchic territory, while Costa Rica was portrayed as a peaceful land. And this perception has persisted for centuries, even when it comes to migration.
Arnoldo Rodríguez also believes there is a certain romanticism and nationalism that denies the ties to Nicaragua, although, he asserted, historical sources prove otherwise.
The Partido de Nicoya did indeed belong to Nicaragua, and that’s not a bad thing—it’s simply part of history. It’s part of the reorganization; it’s part of the nation’s formation,” he told La Voz.
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