Juan Mora Fernandez

Juan Mora Fernández (San José, July 12, 1784 - November 16, 1854), was a Costa Rican merchant, teacher and politician, the first head of state of Costa Rica and reelected twice. occasions, so that he guided the recently emerged State of Costa Rica in three periods (1824-1825, 1825-1829 and 1829-1833). Subsequently, he served as a representative, senator, Vice Chief, and President of the Supreme Court of Justice.

He was also the first ruler to encourage coffee growing in Costa Rica, which changed the country's economy, society, culture, and politics.

Personal data

Her parents were Mateo de Mora Valverde and Lucía Encarnación Fernández Umaña. His brother Joaquín Mora Fernández was also head of state.

He married in San José on January 13, 1819, Juana del Castillo y Palacios (1799 - 1841), niece of the priest Florencio del Castillo, with whom he had eleven children: María Josefa Eugenia de Jesús, José María, María Escolástica de Jesús, Unnamed (twin), Unnamed (twin), José Frutos, Ramón, Juan María Gordiano de Jesús, Juana Dolores de Jesús (Juanita), Camilo de Jesús and Adela de Jesús Mora del Castillo.

Private activities and first public positions

Between 1806 and 1815 he stayed in Costa Rica, dedicated to local commerce, and in 1816 he was appointed teacher of first letters in San José.

From 1815 to 1816 he was Deputy Mayor of the Gotera Party (now San Miguel, El Salvador).

In 1821 he was Secretary of the City of San José and judge of first instance. In November of that year he participated in the drafting commission of the Pact of Concord.

In 1822 he was Secretary of the Superior Government Board. In 1823 he was a member of the Constituent Provincial Congress and from 1823 to 1824 he held the position of mayor of Costa Rica.

In 1824 he presided over the second Patriotic Gathering, in the city of San José.

Head of State (1824-1833)

Monument to Juan Mora Fernández in San José

In 1824 he was elected provisional head of state until 1825, and that year he was overwhelmingly elected head of state for the period 1825-1829.

Juan Mora Fernández was responsible for establishing the first institutions in the country. He decreed the first shield of the Free State of Costa Rica. On November 10, 1824, he promoted the towns of Concepción de Heredia and San Juan Nepomuceno de Alajuela to the rank of cities, and the villages of Escazú, Bagaces, and Barva to the rank of towns. On the 25th of that same month, he issued a decree in which he invited citizens to establish a handwritten newspaper in any town in the state. Shortly after, the first printing press was imported (1830), circulating the first printed newspaper, El noticioso universal, the work of Joaquín Bernardo Calvo.

On July 25, 1824, the towns of Santa Cruz and Nicoya, belonging to the Nicoya Party, were freely annexed to Costa Rica, a fact that was later ratified by decree of the Federal Congress of Central America on March 18, 1825, also including the town of Guanacaste (today Liberia).

Works during the administrations of Juan Mora Fernández

From the Juan Mora Fernández as a ruler, he responded to the eight-year period of tranquillity and progress that characterized Costa Rica, at a time when the war was in the rest of Central America. Among its main works are:

• The annexation of the Nicoya Party in 1824 (photo on the left, copy of the annexation record).
• The Basic Law of the Free State of Costa Rica and the Aprilia Law.
• The declaration of the Virgin of Los Angeles as Patron of Costa Rica.
• Mining in the Montes del Aguacate, the export of the Brazilian stick (Caesalpinia echinata), the first haciendas and exports of coffee to Chile and England.
• The Coin House in 1828 (photo on the right).
• The first printing press and the creation of the first newspaper called "The Universal News."
• The impulse to education through the creation of the House of Teaching of St. Thomas and of primary schools.

Mora Fernández, a schoolteacher, gave public education great practical importance and declared the obligation of the State to propagate it, promoting the creation of primary schools in all population centers of the country. On December 10, 1824, he decreed the creation of the Casa de Enseñanza de Santo Tomás, which taught languages, reading, writing, philosophy, civil and canon law, and theology. Politically, to avoid the absences of the deputies to Congress, he decreed that on the third absence, the deputy would be fined between 50 and 500 pesos, and would be dismissed and declared unworthy of public trust.

On January 26, 1825, he issued the Fundamental Law of the Free State of Costa Rica, where he declared the country independent from Spain, Mexico or any other state, at the same time that the union with the Federal Republic of Central America was decreed; In addition, it established that the government would be popular representative and divided into four powers (Legislative, Executive, Judicial and Conservative); determined that to be an elector, one must be a citizen of legal age in exercise of his rights, with a personal fortune of 100 pesos; and that in each town there should be a popularly elected municipality. Finally, it was decreed that the official religion was Catholic, in addition to declaring the Virgen de los Ángeles, patroness of Costa Rica, establishing a bishopric independent from that of Nicaragua in Costa Rica, converting the church of San José into a cathedral.

On January 28, 1826, a rebellion led by the Spaniard José Zamora broke out in the city of Alajuela, with the aim of subjecting the country once again to Spanish domination; Juan Mora Fernández had to put down the rebellion and have the ringleader shot. On June 7, 1826, he decreed the creation of a general hospital under the name of San Juan de Dios. In 1828 he established the Casa de Moneda, due to the boom in mining activity in the Montes del Aguacate.

In 1829 he was re-elected for the period 1829-1833. In 1829 he issued the Aprilia Law; Through this edict, Costa Rica was temporarily separated from the Federal Republic of Central America (in civil war), a law that was in force until 1831. In 1830, the businessman Miguel Carranza Fernández brought the first printing press in Costa Rica, and in 1833 it was published. the first newspaper in the country, called the “Universal News”. For having promoted the press in his administrations, Juan Mora Fernández has been distinguished with the title of & # 34; Father of Journalism & # 34; from Costa Rica.

Juan Mora Fernández supported mining in the Avocado and Brazilwood (Caesalpinia echinata) mountains on the Pacific Ocean coast, but mainly coffee as the economic and social future of Costa Rica. In 1825 the government exempted coffee from paying tithes, and in 1831 the National Assembly decreed that anyone who grew coffee for 5 years on "wasteland" you could claim it as your own. Mariano Montealegre Bustamante was one of the main promoters of cultivation between 1824-1840. The first exports were made by the German George Stiepel, who traded with England through Chile.

It also begins to give the first guidelines in the municipal area.

His vice heads of state (vice presidents) were Mariano Montealegre Bustamante (1824-1825) and José Rafael de Gallegos y Alvarado (1825-1833), who succeeded him as Head of State from 1833 to 1835.

Subsequent Charges

Later, he was magistrate of the Superior Court of Justice (1834-1835), Deputy to the Central American Federal Congress (1836-1837) and Vice Head of State and President of the Representative Council (1837-1838). In 1838, when Manuel Aguilar Chacón was overthrown, he was confined in Poás and later exiled. For almost three years he resided in El Salvador, until in 1841 he was allowed to return to Costa Rica.

He was provisional deputy chief of state in 1842, member of the Constituent Assembly from 1843-1844, senator and acting president of the Chamber of Senators (1844-1847) and deputy (1847-1848).

From 1850 to 1854 he was magistrate and president of the Supreme Court of Justice of Costa Rica, charges he resigned shortly before his death.

Death

He died in San José on November 16, 1854.

Honors

Juan Mora Fernández National Order.

• In 1833 the Legislative Assembly had decided to place its portrait in its meeting room, with the indication that it occupied that place for its virtues, and that it would be dealt with in the same position as head of State.
• In 1848 Congress declared it Benemeritus of the Homeland.
• In the city of San Jose, a statue was erected and a square bears its name.
• A canton from the province of San José bears the name of Mora.
• The decoration with which the Government of Costa Rica distinguishes foreign personalities is called the National Order Juan Mora Fernández.
• The Juan Mora Fernández school, in Santa Barbara, Heredia, bears its name.

Monument

The monument to Juan Mora Fernández is a 2-meter-tall bronze statue, located on a granite pedestal, located in Plaza Juan Mora Fernández, in front of the National Theater of Costa Rica, in San José. It is the work of the French sculptor Charles Raoul Verlet and was unveiled on September 15, 1921, as a tribute to the first head of state and in the midst of the centenary celebrations of the independence of Costa Rica.

Cinema

In 1983, the Costa Rican Film Production Center made the fiction feature film "Senda Ignorada", directed by Ingo Niehaus and photographed by Luis F. Bulgarelli. The film portrays the attempt of Juan Mora Fernández to carry out an agrarian reform, during his position as secretary of the San José City Council, in the period from 1820 to 1821. This reform consisted of the free distribution of communal lands among the indigent, under the condition of planting coffee; however, a group of merchants, representatives of the incipient bourgeoisie, ends up betraying the reform. The film seeks to capture a decisive period for the subsequent forging of the Costa Rican Nation-State, but ignored by most historical texts.