This Wednesday, April 11 is a holiday in Costa Rica, do you know why?

The country commemorates 162 years of the Battle of Rivas also known as the day of the National Hero, Juan Santamaria.

The Battle of Rivas took place in Rivas, Nicaragua between the filibuster army lead by William Walker and Costa Rica’s army lead by President Juan Rafael Mora Porras, General José Joaquín Mora Porras and General Jose Maria Cañas. The filibusters had fled to Nicaragua after a battle with the Costa Rican army in Santa Rosa Guanacaste on March 20, 1856, where a troop of close to 500 Costa Ricans defeated an unprepared group of filibusters in a very short battle.

This group of Costa Rican soliders continued their route from Guanacaste towards Nicaragua. While another troop came across filibusters near the Sarapiquí River and managed to defeat them in what is called the Battle of Sardinal.

On April 11 Costa Rican troops managed to arrive to RIvas in Nicaragua with close to 700 men, the armies faced each other in a battle that lasted close to 10 hours. Juan Santamaría, a Costa Rican soldier native of Alajuela, volunteered to burn down the “meson”, a building, were the filibusters where gathered; he was successful and this allowed Costa Rica to win a crude battle that had already left many dead, Santamaria lost his life in the mission and became in this way recognized as Costa Rica’s National Hero. Walker’s group fled to Granada.

What led to these battles?

A major trade route between New York City and San Francisco ran through southern Nicaragua, since there was no inter-oceanic route between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans at the time, and the transcontinental railway did not yet exist the options to go from NY to California looking for gold were limited, expensive and dangerous, the trade route was the best option. Ships from New York entered the San Juan River from the Atlantic and sailed across Lake Nicaragua. People and goods were then transported by stagecoach across a narrow strip of land near the city of Rivas, before reaching the Pacific and ships to San Francisco, California where the gold was. The commercial exploitation of this route had been granted by Nicaragua to the Accessory Transit Company, controlled by shipping magnate Cornelius Vanderbilt who would give the Nicaraguan government and important amount every month.

In 1854 a civil war erupted in Nicaragua the Conservative Party based in the city of Granada, and the Liberal Party, based in León. This is when William Walker comes into the picture when the Liberal party sought military support from him. With the support of the Nicaraguan Government, he quickly took control of Granada and set up in Rivas in 1855.

He took over the concession controlled by Vanderbilt and the business of the trade route through the San Juan River and in short he controlled Nicaragua.

Concerned of the actions of Walker in Nicaragua and his intentions in the region, Costa Rican President, Juan Rafael Mora, declared war on Walker on March 1, 1856, and put together an army of close to 4000 men who received modern weapons from England at the request of President Mora, since at the time Costa Rica had great commercial relations with England through the coffee export. The Battle of Santa Rosa, Battle of Sardinal and the Battle of Rivas are part of what is known as the Campaign of 1856-1857.

Costa Rica remembers this important part of its history on April 11, schools organize assemblies on April 10, while April 11 is a National Holiday. The province of Alajuela celebrates with parades.