{"id":5559,"date":"2022-07-24T15:00:00","date_gmt":"2022-07-24T15:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/?p=5559"},"modified":"2022-07-24T02:42:15","modified_gmt":"2022-07-24T02:42:15","slug":"basque-fact-of-the-week-basques-in-costa-rica","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/2022\/07\/24\/basque-fact-of-the-week-basques-in-costa-rica\/","title":{"rendered":"Basque Fact of the Week: Basques and Costa Rica"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"has-pale-cyan-blue-background-color has-background\">At the end of June, my wife, my daughter, and I did an <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Ecotourism\">ecotour<\/a> of Costa Rica. We did and saw lots of awesome things, from wildlife (the goal was to find frogs and we saw a lot of them, as well as bats, tapir, monkeys, and crocodiles), whitewater rafting, ziplining, waterfalls, cocoa and coffee tours&#8230; it was jam packed. But one thing we didn&#8217;t see a lot of was Basque names. We see them everywhere in New Mexico, but not so much in Costa Rica. It made me curious about the Basque history of this beautiful country&#8230;<\/p>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"alignright size-medium\"><a href=\"https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/costa-rica-euskadi-01.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"300\" height=\"194\" src=\"https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/costa-rica-euskadi-01-300x194.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-5567\" srcset=\"https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/costa-rica-euskadi-01-300x194.png 300w, https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/costa-rica-euskadi-01-1024x661.png 1024w, https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/costa-rica-euskadi-01-768x495.png 768w, https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/costa-rica-euskadi-01-1536x991.png 1536w, https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/costa-rica-euskadi-01-2048x1321.png 2048w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><figcaption>Bust of Diego de Artieda Chirino y Ucl\u00e9s (photo found on <a href=\"http:\/\/diver.net\/cocos\/2005.12.23\/\">diver.net<\/a>). <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>While what would become Costa Rica was first encountered by Christopher Columbus in 1502, and many settlers tried to colonize the region in the name of the Spanish crown in later years, it wasn&#8217;t until 1573 that Costa Rica was established as its own province &#8211; the <a href=\"https:\/\/es.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Provincia_de_Costa_Rica\">Province of Costa Rica<\/a> &#8211; separate from that of other larger entities such as the Kingdom of Guatemala, replacing the Province of Nuevo Cartago y Costa Rica. In that year, <a href=\"https:\/\/es.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Diego_de_Artieda_Chirino_y_Ucl\u00e9s\">Diego de Artieda Chirino y Ucl\u00e9s<\/a> was authorized by King <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Philip_II_of_Spain\">Felipe II <\/a>to &#8220;discover and settle the province called Costa Rica.&#8221; Artieda was from <a href=\"https:\/\/es.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Esparza_de_Salazar\">Esparza de Salazar<\/a> (Espartza Zaraitzu in Euskara), a small town in Nafarroa. His parents were Pedro de Ucl\u00e9s and Mar\u00eda Enriquez Chirino. He was charged with <a href=\"https:\/\/aunamendi.eusko-ikaskuntza.eus\/en\/centroamerica\/ar-30434-145571\/#12845\">founding at least three cities<\/a>, one of which &#8211; Artieda del Nuevo Reino de Navarra &#8211; didn&#8217;t last long. He also founded the city of Esparza (today Esparta) in 1578. In 1577 he was named governor for life of Costa Rica, until he was deposed in 1589. He died a year later in <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Guatemala_City\">Guatemala City<\/a>. <\/li><li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.dgan.go.cr\/ran\/index.php\/RAN\/article\/view\/215\/150\">Two Basque families<\/a> figured prominently in the early history of Costa Rica. The first is the Retes family. Jer\u00f3nimo de Retes Salazar was born in 1560 in Bilbao to Pedro de Retes and Do\u00f1a Petronila Lloredo. He married Mar\u00eda de Ortega in 1595 and died young, in 1596, in Cartago, Costa Rica. His son, <a href=\"https:\/\/es.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Jer\u00f3nimo_de_Retes_y_L\u00f3pez_de_Ortega\">Jer\u00f3nimo de Retes y L\u00f3pez de Ortega<\/a>, was an important military man and explorer of the region. He was captain of the militia and later Alguacil Mayor of Cartago. He subdued two kings of the indigenous Votos, Pocica and Pisiaca, and explored the Cutr\u00eds and Jovi rivers (today San Carlos and Sarapiqu\u00ed). He was a very active merchant and continued to make excursions into indigenous areas, trying to capture slave labor. His daughter, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.afehc-historia-centroamericana.org\/index_action_fi_aff_id_1273.html\">Do\u00f1a Ana de Retes<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ticoindex.com\/santaana\/resena_historica_santa_ana.html\">sold some of the land<\/a> she inherited from her father which later became the site of the city of <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Santa_Ana,_Costa_Rica\">Santa Ana<\/a>.<\/li><li>The second family was the Echavarr\u00eda Navarro. Juan de Echavarr\u00eda Navarro was born in sometime in the late 1580s in Spain. He became <a href=\"https:\/\/pdfs.semanticscholar.org\/1f9b\/536a192d19d05daeeb431356eba356793e8a.pdf\">treasurer of Costa Rica<\/a> until 1632 when he died at a relatively young age. He had married Mar\u00eda de Sandoval. Their son, also named Juan, married the previously-mentioned Do\u00f1a Ana de Retes. Juan, the junior, was mayor of Cartago for a few years. He obtained weapons and ammunition to protect the city and region against pirates. Two of his brothers, Domingo and Francisco, became priests. <\/li><li>By the 18th century, the economic fortunes of these families had declined. However, connections to the Basque Country remained strong. The women descended from these &#8220;first&#8221; families often married emigrants from the Basque Country, men like Domingo Inza and Lorenzo de Arburola Irribaren from Gipuzkoa, Luis Fernando de Liendo y Goicoechea from Bizkaia, and Esteban de Hoses from Nafarroa. Thus, through these networks with the Basque Country, Basques continued to be an important part of Costa Rican society and politics.<\/li><li>However, the cultural impact of the Basque immigrants to the region is less visible. There was a fronton in San Jos\u00e9, the capital. <a href=\"https:\/\/micostaricadeantano.com\/2021\/05\/15\/el-fronton-beti-jai-san-jose\/\">Beti-Jai<\/a> opened in 1904. This fronton is now the headquarters of the Technological Institute of Costa Rica stands .A second, named Jai-Alai, opened in 1929. This second one was built by two Basque brothers &#8211; \u00c1ngel and Seraf\u00edn Mak\u00faa. Seraf\u00edn, an architect, also was involved in the construction of frontons Havana, Mexico City, San Salvador, and Guatemala City. However, Jai-Alai lasted only a decade before it was converted to a skating rink and then a police station, before being demolished to make way for an artist market. The club <a href=\"http:\/\/clubcampestreespanol.com\/instalaciones\/\">Campestre Espa\u00f1ol<\/a>, in Bel\u00e9n, opened a fronton in 2002.<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>Primary source: Quir\u00f3s Vargas, C., Vel\u00e1zquez Bonilla, C., &amp; Payne Iglesias, E. (2004). <em><a href=\"http:\/\/www.dgan.go.cr\/ran\/index.php\/RAN\/article\/view\/215\">Los Vascos en la Rep\u00fablica de Costa Rica. An\u00e1lisis de su posici\u00f3n social, econ\u00f3mica y mentalidad colectiva. Siglos XVII y XVIII.<\/a>&nbsp;<em>Revista Del Archivo Nacional<\/em>,&nbsp;<\/em><strong>68<\/strong>, 117-139.&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>At the end of June, my wife, my daughter, and I did an ecotour of Costa Rica. We did and saw lots of awesome things, from wildlife (the goal was to find frogs and we saw a lot of them, as well as bats, tapir, monkeys, and crocodiles), whitewater rafting, ziplining, waterfalls, cocoa and coffee [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5567,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[836,13],"tags":[3359,3362,3361,3346,3353,3355,3354,128,3356,3363,3358,3360,3357],"class_list":["post-5559","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-basque-fact-of-the-week","category-history","tag-ana-de-retes","tag-beti-jai","tag-cartago","tag-costa-rica","tag-diego-de-artieda-chirino-y-ucles","tag-esparza","tag-felipe-ii","tag-fronton","tag-guatemala","tag-jai-alai-2","tag-jeronimo-de-retes-salazar","tag-juan-de-echavarria-navarro","tag-retes"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/costa-rica-euskadi-01.png","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2sYNu-1rF","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5559","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5559"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5559\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5599,"href":"https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5559\/revisions\/5599"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5567"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5559"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5559"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5559"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}