Today, as every July 25th, we are celebrating the Annexation of the Nicoya Party to Costa Rica, which took place in 1824.
The Nicoya Party was constituted by the lands located west of the Tempisque River to the Pacific Ocean and north of the Salto River to the La Flor River and the Lake of Nicaragua, which formed the boundary with the Province of Nicaragua.
This territory enjoyed great autonomy, although in civil and administrative matters it depended on the General Captaincy of Guatemala. However, due to the proximity to the Province of Costa Rica, specifically with the populations of Puntarenas, Esparza, Bagaces and Las Cañas, it established commercial relationships and a great identification with the Costa Rican way of being.
Because of this, the Nicoya Party during the Colony maintained a very particular status. It was a territory that did not belong to Nicaragua nor Costa Rica and commercially there were important links with the latter.
In the year of 1812 the Province of Costa Rica had to send a deputy who would represent it in the Cádiz Cortes. Because the Costa Rican population was small, the Province had the Nicoya Party join temporarily to have the minimum population required to appoint the representative to the Cortes. With that union it was possible to appoint the priest Florencio del Castillo as representative of the Province of Costa Rica in the Cádiz Cortes.
The Independence of Central America was declared on September 15th, 1821, which made the Nicoya Party take decisions and define their future.
The relations with Costa Rica favored the union to this territory, because the mercantile nexus was very favorable and the political integration complemented the economic one, that had been developed years back.
Under this situation the inhabitants of the Nicoya Party agreed to hold an open meeting to define their situation. Consequently, they decided to join the Province of Costa Rica on July 25, 1824, under the slogan "De la Patria por nuestra voluntad", as it was the inhabitants of the Nicoya Party who decided to annex the Province of Costa Rica.
This is why it is called the annexation of the Nicoya Party to Costa Rica, and not the annexation of Guanacaste, as it is sometimes mistakenly referred as.
