These hardships lay in the nature of the country itself. For the next forty years, Costa Rica was left alone due to the prosperity and opportunities in Peru and Mexico. This led to very few immigrants entering Costa Rica, keeping its population small.
In 1562, Juan Vasquez de Coronado came to be governor who continued conquest and exploration of the highlands. With the generous amount of land available to be farmed but no native slave labor to work it, the Spanish settlers farmed their land themselves. Without gold or other export crops, the settlers were unable to trade with other countries. This caused money to become very scarce and Costa Rica remained to be one of the smallest and poorest of the Central American colonies (Baker 2003). With so few immigrants, intermarriage among the Spaniards was the general rule. Some men even took Indian women as wives since there were so few Spanish women (Anderson 13). This allowed for Costa Rica to begin a classless society. Costa Rica became a "rural democracy- with no oppression towards classes or the maltreatment of the Creoles (Baker 2003). Removed from the mainstream of Spanish culture, the Costa Ricans became very individualistic and egalitarian. It was not until the 17th century that their economy began to grow. Made up mostly of subsistence farmers, Costa Rica began to export wheat and tobacco. This helped improve the conditions of the colonists.
Independence for Costa Rica came as a bit of a surprise. Mexico revolted against Spain and declared it's independence in 1821, while the rest of Central America followed (Biesanz 20). Costa Rica joined the Central American federation, a confederation of the Central American states. At the time it was not of great significance because they had only experienced minimal and limited Spanish government during the colonial time. .
The first elected chief of state was Juan Mora Fernandez in 1824.
