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Juan
Santamaría
Juan Santamaría (August 29, 1831 - April
11, 1856), is officially recognized as the national hero of the Republic of
Costa Rica. A national holiday in Costa Rica, Juan Santamaría Day, is
held every April 11 to commemorate his death.
Santamaría was
born in the city of Alajuela. When U.S. adventurer William Walker overthrew the
government of Nicaragua and attempted to conquer the other nations in Central
America, including Costa Rica, in order to form a private slave-holding empire,
Costa Rican president Juan Rafael Mora Porras called upon the general
population to take up arms and march north to Nicaragua to fight against the
foreign invader. Santamaría, a poor laborer and the illegitimate son of
a single mother, joined the army as a drummer boy. The troops nicknamed him el
erizo ("the hedgehog") on account of his spiked hair.
After routing a
small contingent of Walker's soldiers at Santa Rosa, Guanacaste, the Costa
Rican troops continued marching north and reached the city of Rivas, Nicaragua,
on April 8, 1856. Combat was fierce and the Costa Ricans were not able to drive
Walker's men out of a hostel near the town center from which they commanded an
advantageous firing position.
According to the traditional account, on
April 11 Costa Rican General José María Cañas suggested
that one of the soldiers advance towards the hostel with a torch and set it on
fire. Some soldiers tried and failed, but finally Santamaría volunteered
on the condition that, in the event of his death, some other soldier would look
after his mother. He then advanced and was mortally wounded by enemy fire.
Before expiring he succeeded, however, in setting fire to the hostel, thus
contributing decisively to the Costa Rican victory at Rivas.
This
account is apparently supported by a petition for a state pension filed on
November of 1857 by Santamaría's mother, as well as by government
documents showing that the pension was granted. Various historians, however,
have questioned whether the account is accurate, and if Santamaria died or not
during that battle or another one. At any rate, towards the end of the 19th
century, Costa Rican intellectuals and politicians seized on the war against
Walker and on the figure of Juan Santamaría for nationalist purposes.
Juan Santamaría is honored by a statue in the central square of
Alajuela, and by a small museum in the same city;
as a side note, the statue's uniform and body don't match his description due
to the fact that Juan's statue was mis-shipped to Haiti, and the Haitian one,
representing a French soldier, was sent to Alajuela. The main international
airport in Costa Rica is named after him.
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