Diego de Artieda Chirino and Ucles

Diego de Artieda Chirino y Uclés, or Diego Artieda Chirinos, (Esparza de Salazar, Crown of Spain, ca. 1533 – Guatemala City of the province of the same name, Spanish Empire, 1590) was a conquistador who held the post of Governor of Nicaragua from 1576 to 1583 and the following year also went on to hold the life post of Governor of the province of Costa Rica, from 1577, until he was deposed a year earlier. of his death.

Biography

Diego de Artieda Chirino y Uclés would have been born around 1533 in Esparza de Salazar, a small town in the Salazar valley, in the recently incorporated Kingdom of Navarre to Castilla, which was part of the Spanish Crown, being the son of Pedro de Uclés and Maria Enríquez Chirino.

Served in the Captaincy General of the Philippines. In 1573 he celebrated a capitulation with King Felipe II for the pacification and settlement of the province of Costa Rica. In 1574 he was appointed governor of Nicaragua to occupy it only in 1576 and from 1577 also as governor for life of Costa Rica. He married Maria de Céspedes y Flores.

He founded the city of Artieda del Nuevo Reino de Navarra on the Caribbean coast of the province of Costa Rica, which had an ephemeral life, and in the vicinity of the Pacific Ocean coast the city of Esparza, located in the area of current Canton of Esparza, for which it takes its name and for a long time it was called, due to ignorance of the origin of the name, Esparta. although it recovered its original name by decree of May 6, 1974.

His work as Governor was continuously hampered by the Audiencia of Guatemala, which in 1589 deposed him and opened a process against him. He died in Guatemala in 1590.