XI.
COMMERCE AND INDUSTRY.
Joaquin Bernardo Calvo, in his work on Costa Rica published in 1890, observes that “at the beginning of the Colonial Government the Port of Suerre, on the Atlantic coast, had some commercial importance, but that the Port of Rivera on the west coast of the Gulf of Nicoya was greater, as were also Coronado del Norte on the Island of Caño and the Golfo de Ossa, now Golfo Dulce.
“All the ships then plying on the Pacific between Mexico, Panama, Perú and intermediate ports were wont to ride at anchor at the Island of Caño. The most important centre of commerce in those times was the City of Santiago de Talamanca, now extinct, whence cargoes were sent in three days’ time to Porto Bello. The exports of that age were cacao, potatoes, honey, wax, sarsaparilla and hemp. When the city was destroyed its traffic was dispersed.
“In 1638 the opening of the Matina road was the beginning of a new era. The cacao haciendas in the valley of that name acquired a new importance. At the same time the Gulf of Nicoya became a centre of traffic. Costa Rica was then in a flourishing condition and would have prospered finely but for the pirates and Mosquito Indians, who constantly menaced its welfare and whose vandalism ravaged the coast settlements.
“After that period Costa Rica was reduced to woeful misery, carrying on an insignificant commerce overland with Panama by mules and sending a few unimportant articles to Nicaragua. Thus more than a century passed.
“In the present century (1813) the Captaincy General imposed severe restrictions on the commerce of the Province. At the time of declaring independence the situation of Costa Rica was wretched.
“Just beginning an independent career, struggling to inaugurate a system of government wholly new and opposed to the preceding one, contending with poverty, in a state of complete upheaval, the work undertaken by the forefathers of the present Costa Ricans was full of difficulties.
“Coffee culture gave a new impulse and importance to Costa Rica. At the close of the first half of the Nineteenth Century commerce was carried on with the north through Matina and Sarapiqui, and through Caldera on the Pacific.
“The greater facilities available on the Pacific coast, however, especially when a line of steamers connecting with the Panama Railroad opened a new way to the Atlantic, turned the course of business to Puntarenas, a new port which soon became the sole commercial route.
“This state of things, unnecessarily adding to the expense of importations, continued for years. When the Port of Limon was opened to commerce the competition of two routes and the new facilities of a railroad and a wagon road to the Atlantic greatly promoted traffic and contributed to the general wealth.”