Juan Santamaria

Juan Santamaría (Alajuela, Federal Republic of Central America (current Costa Rica), August 29, 1831-Rivas, Nicaragua, April 11, 1856) is one of the two recognized national heroes officially for Costa Rica, along with former president Juan Rafael Mora Porras, and one of the 14 national heroes of the national campaign of 1856-1857. He is credited with the burning of the so-called Mesón de Guerra, in Rivas, during the battle of the same name, on April 11, 1856, within the framework of the National Campaign of 1856-1857 and the War Nicaraguan National. In said inn, there were the filibusters commanded by the American William Walker. In that heroic act, which helped the Costa Ricans win the battle, he lost his life. It was not until 35 years later, in 1891, when he began to be idealized as a national hero in the midst of a decisive era for the consolidation of Costa Rican identity.

On September 15, 1891, the bronze statue made by the French sculptor Aristide Croisy was inaugurated in the Juan Santamaría Park in Alajuela. Later, the country's main airport, the Cultural Historical Museum of the aforementioned city, has been named after him, and literary, musical and plastic arts works have been dedicated to it, in addition to multiple studies of a historical nature, partly motivated because, Over the years, some people have questioned its existence.

April 11, 2011 marks the date on which Juan Santamaría is officially declared by the Costa Rican authorities as a national hero, despite the fact that the civic festival in honor of the Alajuelense soldier had been ritually celebrated in the country since 1915. For many Costa Ricans, Juan Santamaría represents the living national spirit in the form of a young man of humble birth who is willing to give his life for the freedom of his people and his country.

Biographical data

The future hero was the out-of-wedlock son of Manuela Santamaría Rodríguez, also known as Manuela Gallego (a nickname by which the Rodríguez family was known in Alajuela, as recorded in the birth certificate of Narcisa, Manuela's mother, and in those of her aunts María de la Trinidad and Teresa Josefa) or Manuela Carvajal (because her father was Mateo Santamaría Carvajal, who at that time used his paternal or maternal surnames interchangeably). It is clear that Manuela's legitimate surname was Santamaría., inherited to Juan as the natural son that he was, although the documentation where her name is registered also shows the use of the surname Gallego, a nickname that was applied to her mother and that of Carvajal, the surname used frequently by his father. The name of Juan's father is not known, according to his baptismal certificate from the Parish of Alajuela, which includes the acronym "p.n.c" (of an unknown father). However, in The Negro in Costa Rica , Meléndez and Duncan mention that he was the natural son of a Guanacastecan of black ethnicity, hence he was mulatto. In some texts Two brothers named Joaquina and Rufino are attributed to him, but his mother's pension request clearly states that Juan was her only son. At the age of ten, he entered the military barracks learning to play the drum. In his childhood and youth, he was a day laborer and a bricklayer's assistant. He was sacristan of the Church of Alajuela and also a house servant. His friends nicknamed him El Erizo because of his curly hair. On the occasion of the National Campaign of 1856-1857, he joined the troops of his native province commanded by Colonel Manuel G. del Bosque, undertaking the trip on March 4, 1856.

Participation in the campaign against filibusters

In 1853 a civil war was taking place in Nicaragua, because the liberal supporters of the democratic side had taken up arms against the government of President Fruto Chamorro Pérez, whose followers formed the side < i>legitimist, which becomes strong in the city of Granada.

The democrats, whose stronghold was the city of León, hired through Francisco Castellón Sanabria and Máximo Jerez Tellería the filibusters of the southern United States under the command of William Walker, who took control of the government and He declared himself president of Nicaragua.

After the discovery of gold in California in 1848, the so-called Transit Way was opened the following year, along which travelers going from the east to the west of the United States traveled to San Juan del Norte. The boat that was waiting for them there took them along the San Juan River and Lake Nicaragua to La Virgen, where they took errands that left them in San Juan del Sur, where they embarked for California. The journey was the other way around for those going from the west to the east of the United States.

The success of the Transit route increased interest in building an interoceanic canal, and fueled competition between the United States and Great Britain, which culminated in the signing of the Clayton-Bulwer treaty in April 1850, by which Both powers agreed not to have exclusive control over the possible channel. In such circumstances, Walker's interest in consolidating his presence in southern Nicaragua and northern Costa Rica is explained because such dominance would guarantee him a strategic position in any negotiation for the construction of the canal. Although Walker gained support from the liberals Nicaraguans and the slavers of the United States, who saw the opportunity to annex Central America, a certain aversion against him also arose in the area and even in the United Kingdom.

Juan Rafael Mora Porras, head of State of Costa Rica at that time, had enough vision to recognize the danger that Walker's project implied for the territorial integrity of Costa Rica, so he called on the population to take action. weapons and march north, to Nicaragua, to fight against the foreign invader. Santamaría was a drummer in the Alajuela barracks and in that capacity he left with the Costa Rican army.

After eliminating a small group of Walker's soldiers at the Battle of Santa Rosa, the Costa Rican troops continued their route north and reached the city of Rivas (Nicaragua) on April 8. Three days later the second battle of Rivas took place there.

The second battle of Rivas

The first battle of Rivas occurred a year earlier, in 1855, when William Walker arrived in Nicaragua and faced forces from that country. But it was in 1856 that the Costa Ricans would have one of the most memorable confrontations against the filibusters.

The combat on April 11 in Rivas was fierce. The Costa Ricans were not able to get Walker's men to leave the so-called Mesón de Guerra, the house they had as a command center, and from where they had an advantageous attack position.

According to secular history, on April 11, 1856, Salvadoran General José María Cañas suggested that one of the soldiers advance toward the inn with a torch and set it on fire. Lieutenant Luis Pacheco Bertora (Carthaginian) volunteered for the task, who tried, but was seriously wounded by three bullets. When Pacheco fell, a Nicaraguan who was fighting in the Costa Rican ranks, Joaquín Rosales, took the torch, but He was killed by bullets before reaching the inn. Juan Santamaría, 25 years old, offered himself, with the condition that, in case he died, another soldier would take care of his mother. Then he took the torch, advanced and was mortally wounded by the enemy. Before dying, he managed to set fire to the inn and thus contributed to the Costa Rican victory in Rivas.

Recognition and memory

The recognition of the merits of Juan Santamaría as a hero of the National Campaign of 1856-1857 arose almost thirty years after his feat in 1885,

On April 25, 1885, two coast guard vessels were baptized with the names of

"...MORA, in honor of the illustrious rulers of that surname and JUAN SANTAMARIA, in memory of the heroic soldier of Alajuela. "

when his memory was in a way excavated from an indifferent past and he was glorified to the point of making him the national hero of Costa Rica.

Since September 15, 1891, he has been honored with a bronze statue commissioned by the Government, through the Costa Rican diplomat in Paris, Manuel María de Peralta, from the French sculptor Aristide Croisy, in the Alajuela park that bears his name. and where there are also plaques with the names of many other soldiers killed during the campaign. The cultural-historical museum of that city is also named after him, as is the main international airport.

In 1915, under the administration of Alfredo González Flores and at the initiative of a group of deputies from the province of Alajuela, April 11 was decreed in perpetuity as the date dedicated to commemorate the heroic deed of soldier Juan Santamaría.

Another similar statue is located in the Legislative Assembly of Costa Rica. The one in Alajuela was placed on a beautiful stone pedestal hand-carved by the Italian craftsman Giuseppe Bulgarelli.

In 1980, the then president of Costa Rica Rodrigo Carazo negotiated with his neighbor president Daniel Ortega to carry out the repatriation of the mortal remains of Juan Santamaría to be buried in a planned pantheon that would bear his name in Costa Rica. The Sandinistas handed over a chest that supposedly contained the remains of that hero, but to their surprise the forensic doctors discovered that they were not those of the hero or of any human being, but of a dead deer, according to the investigation report made for verify authenticity. The Costa Rican government had no choice but to return them, despite the protest of the Nicaraguan government, which insisted that they corresponded to those of Juan Santamaría. No one knows for sure where the hero is buried in Nicaragua.

It was not until April 11, 2011, when Juan Santamaría was officially recognized as a national hero of Costa Rica by the government of President Laura Chinchilla Miranda, although the date of April 11 had been celebrated annually in Costa Rica like the day of Juan Santamaría, being one of the most important anniversaries in the country.

Monument to Juan Santamaría

The bronze statue of Juan Santamaría was made in France by the sculptor Aristide Croisy (1840-1889) and cast by Eugene-Antoine Durenne. The statue, financed by national subscription in 1887, was solemnly inaugurated in Alajuela, at noon on September 15, 1891, according to Agreement no. CDVI of August 22 of the same year, when José Rodríguez Zeledón (1890-1894) was president. It is located in the Alajuela park that bears the name of the hero.

History

Various mechanisms were used for the construction of the monument, among which the initiative of the authorities by agreement no. XXX of June 8, 1887, which promoted a public subscription of donations from the population.

Because the money collected was not enough, in July 1887, "the amount of five thousand pesos from the Public Treasury" to assist the construction of the monument.

The unveiling of the statue was attended by an official delegation, which was composed, in hierarchical order of appearance, of the president of the republic, the supreme powers, the Minister of the Most Serene Catholic Majesty, high dignitaries of the Iglesia and Camilo Mora representing his father, Juan Rafael, and his uncle José Joaquín. Rafael Cañas also participated on behalf of General José María Cañas, governors and municipalities, foreign consuls, journalists, members of the General Staff and the Municipal Committee of the Alajuela festivities.

The civic festivities began on September 14 at night after the train full of Carthaginians, Heredians and Josephites arrived. The city of Alajuela was invaded by visitors who participated in two days of national holidays. The lighting and a four-way retreat in front of the bronze were scheduled for 8:00 p.m. On September 15, as was customary, the citizens woke up to the firing of cannons and the music of bands throughout the population. The official acts began with the arrival of the President and his delegation. Later, the train of “invalids of the National Campaign” arrived, to whom the respective honors were done. At the same time, the official delegation was honored with a banquet. After the toast, the official procession set off and, upon reaching the Main Plaza, the troops that had already formed were waiting for them. There was a huge crowd in the new park to begin the ceremony. It is estimated that more than 1,500 people attended the unveiling.

The first speaker was the Minister of War, Rafael Yglesias, who recounted the heroic acts of 1856 and 1857. He emphasized that the statue was a reward for the heroism of Juan Santamaría, for which he established that the Homeland today opened the doors of immortality. He also invited the soldiers to imitate his example, and thanked the representatives of the Mora and the Cañas and the “invalids of the Campaign” for their presence, [whom he called] mutilated remains of that army.” Yglesias ended his speech in an emotional way by telling the audience to prepare “to salute the hero of Rivas, the heroic soldier of April 11, 1856. Comrades in arms of Juan Santamaría, remove the veil that covers him!, show it to posterity!

A curious fact is that when the statue was unveiled, in the ceremony on September 15, 1891, the veteran soldiers of the National Campaign pointed out that the physical resemblance to the “Hedgehog” was unquestionable.; only that Santamaría was “more burdensome on his back". After the unveiling of the statue, Ricardo Jiménez offered a speech. Next, Marcelino Pacheco, who in his dissertation compared the recognition of Juan Santamaría's heroism with the process that Christ had to go through to be accepted as redeemer, did so as a guest speaker. At the end of the speeches, the Costa Rican poet Luis Flores read some extensive and virile verses, which, like the speeches, were reproduced by the press. Three different versions of the Patriotic Hymn to Juan Santamaría were then sung: one composed by Emilio Pacheco, set to music by Rafael Chaves and sung by young men, women and girls from Alajuela, who at the end of their participation individually placed a crown at the feet of the statue. Second, the anthem composed by Emilio Pacheco Cooper, set to music by Pedro Calderón Navarro and directed by maestro José Campabadal, sung by one hundred and fifty members of Carthaginian society, and the third anthem was composed by the Heredian Gordiano Morales. This version was performed by the four bands (Alajuela, Heredia, San José and Cartago). The lyrics were not sung because there was not enough time in Heredia to organize a choir for this purpose. Finally, the pasodoble Juan Santamaría was performed, composed by Octavio Morales with lyrics by the poet Emilio Pacheco Cooper. To the rhythm of the pasodoble the army parade began, followed by the corps of invalids. With this activity the official acts in front of the statue ended. The importance of musical activities shows the determining role that music had in the formation of Costa Rican nationality.

The Nicaraguan poet Rubén Darío (1867-1916), during a brief stay in the country in 1891, realized the importance of this new national symbol. Regarding the unveiling of the statue of the “great hero,” the Nicaraguan bard noted in the pages of La Prensa Libre, in its edition of September 23, 1891, the following:

Bello was the end...when he discovered the monument and appeared the ‘Erizo’ with his tea-filled! It was a formidable universal cry. The bands exploded in martial and harmonic thunder, the hymn patrio, alive and sound; the women in the balconies stirred up the scarves and sought the flowers of the coriño; they cried with ardent and sudden joy, the knights of hat and the workers of jacket and hat of pita; the applauses and the shouts were mixed, to the military chant of the coppers The horns. And trembling with emotion, the invalids of the old battles and new soldiers presented the weapons! The highest honors were made to the Galician, while he sounded powerfully, the wind, the infants and the gunmen.

At the same time, he dedicates a tribute to him:

Bronce to Private Juan!

Music and hymns to the Mestizo!Glory to the one who sacrificed himself for freedom under the triumphant pavilion of his land!Apotheosis to the minimum man, sung the first time by the hymnical andAlvaro Contreras fogosa,celebrated by the verses of the national poets,

in the metal of immortality by the chisel of the European artifice, and whose name and memory will live forever in the heart of all Costa Ricans

Reuben Darius, 1891.

Characteristics of the work

The model that Aristide Croisy used to design the statue was a young soldier who had already worked with the French sculptor for previous monuments. The choice of the model for the statuary representation of the Costa Rican national hero, evidently, did not seek similarity with Santamaría's mulatto features.

The monument to Juan Santamaría is made up of three parts: the upper two correspond to the bronze sculpture itself and the pedestal with the reliefs. The third part corresponds to a plinth, which is made of stone worked by a master craftsman of Italian nationality, residing in Costa Rica at the end of the century, Giuseppe Bulgarelli. The figure of the soldier Juan measures 2.25 meters high and is placed on a marble pedestal with two bas-reliefs alluding to the events of April 11, 1856, signed by Gustave Deloy.

The lower rails are located on the sides of the pedestal: the one on the south side is titled Exalting the soldiers to burn the Mesón de Guerra, in which Santamaría can be seen stepping out of range when it is done the memorable question: “Who dares to set fire to the Inn?” and the one from the north, The fire of the Mesón de Guerra, Rivas, Nicaragua, in which the soldier is seen already dying, about to expire.

Crowning the sober and solid granite and marble pedestal 4.54 meters high, the statue of Juan Santamaría, 2.25 meters high, with perfect symmetry and idealized features, imposes itself, frontal and defiant, in an attitude of setting fire to the Inn, holding in his right hand the flaming and shining torch, symbol of freedom, while in his left he carries the rifle-bayonet. Furthermore, his height is higher than his actual height. The size of the statue, exaggeratedly elevated compared to the average citizen-spectators, is a way of emphasizing its heroic proportions and masculinity, thus connecting its physical greatness with the glories of the Costa Rican nation.

The intention of imposing this style in the monumentality of Santamaría is a tribute to his quality as a hero, which also carries implicit the idea of a “secular saint”, susceptible to civic and secular worship.. Once the humble “son of the people” died, his statue could only arouse the effect of the presence of a “beautiful incarnation of heroism”. The plinth of the statue is flanked with branches of palms, oaks and laurels, emblems of triumph and glory, and with the coat of arms of Costa Rica, in a prominent place. Lion heads are also present, symbolizing strength, courage and national sovereignty. All these allegorical-decorative elements are cast in bronze. The inscriptions in capital letters read as follows:

“JUAN SANTAMARY /11

1856” (to the front on the pedestal), “MONUMENT ERIGIDO BY SUSCRIPTION/ PUBLIC WITH THE GOVERNMENT CONCURSE / HÉROE DEAD BY THE PATRIA IN THE / BATALLA OF RIVAS THE NATIONAL WARRATOR / AGAINST

(behind)

Patriotic Hymn to Juan Santamaría

This hymn was composed in 1891 by Costa Ricans Pedro Calderón Navarro (music) and Emilio Pacheco Cooper (lyrics). It was sung for the first time during the unveiling of the statue of Juan Santamaría on September 15, 1891. Its intonation is part of the civic events on April 11 that commemorate the battle of Rivas.

Patriotic anthem to Juan Santamaría

Music: Pedro Calderón Navarro
Letra: Emilio Pacheco Cooper

Let's sing ufanos the memory egregia
of that of the immortal soldier country,
to whom today united fame and history
A triumphal hymn is called joyous.

Let's sing to the hero that in Rivas, rotten,
of Mars despises the fierce crotch
e, intrepid, lifting his sparkling tea
fly for the homeland, smiling, dying.

Look at him, on his right hand the avenging tea
shakes, and advances from his feat afterward;
Death, what's the matter of thunder,
if you feel in the chest the wrath of a god?

And it advances and advances; the murderous lead
wound him without truce and invite him to burn,
and as heroic exhales life
You hear the avenger roaring fire.

Athletic noble health, your glorious name
a people who are free, he acclaims it today everywhere:
a town that always fought brave,

because he knows that it is great, “what you,” to perish.

Other recognitions

Sculpture

• In the city of Madrid, the capital of Spain, the city council placed in 1993 a statue dedicated to Juan Santamaría, work of Fernando Calvo Sánchez (1984). It is located in Parque Norte, Avenida Monforte de Lemos, Madrid.
• A statue located at the entrance of Juan Santamaría International Airport, a bronze of 2.5 m high, work of Fernando Calvo inaugurated in 1989.
• A statue located in the Legislative Assembly of Costa Rica.
• In the internal gardens of the Juan Santamaría Cultural Historic Museum of Alajuela there is a bronze head of the hero, 57 cm high, work performed by the sculptor Fumero Páez in 1979.
• The intersection of Avenue 5 and 7th Street of Alajuela is the Source of Freedom, a pool with a central monolith as an indication of the precise place in which he was born The Hedgehog.
• A bronze bust located in the sculpture garden of the Maldonado Dragon Quarter, Uruguay.

Painting

• The oil The burning of the Month by Juan Santamaría (1896), work of Enrique Echandi.
• The young Juan Santamaría is one of the central figures of the great mural on the battle of Rivas titled When the country burned, work of the painter Carlos Aguilar in the park of Alajuela that bears the name of the hero.

Literary works

• The play of theatre The sparkling tea: Juan Santamaría or the rages of a god, by Jorge Arroyo, written in 2004, winner of the National Aquileo Theatre Award J. Echeverría of that year. It is a text that tells the fundamental facts of the National Campaign from the perspective of Juan Santamaría. The piece, based on extensive research from primary sources, exposes little known data to the time of the childhood and adolescence of Santamaría. The work is also part of the recommended readings of the Ministry of Public Education.
• The novel The Hedgehogby Carlos Gagini, written in 1922. This is a story that, in spite of the historical facts, presents to a Juan Santamaría who decides to burn the month of Rivas as a manifestation of love for a woman he wanted since he was a child.
• The poem Juan Santamaría of Julián Marchena, published in the magazine American Repertoire.

Debate about its existence

In recent years, as the commemoration of April 11 in Costa Rica approaches, it is common for some to question the existence of Juan Santamaría. This trend is probably related to the advances experienced in historical knowledge in the last two decades, which have shown the importance that the war against William Walker had in the construction of the Costa Rican nation.

Origin of the debate

The Liberal State played a fundamental role in the process of heroization of the popular figure of Juan Santamaría who, at the same time, was inserted in the project of consolidating the Costa Rican nation and nationality. Thus, based on the known information, the historical context in which the idea of remembering Juan Santamaría and his deeds occurred is determined, at least, by two basic reasons. Firstly, the rescue of soldier Juan and his feat occurred, above all, due to the need of the liberal ruling sector to promote a hero of popular extraction, a man of the people i>, which would allow the social group to internally unite, and in this way legitimize their rise to power or gain support for their projects. It should be remembered that, for the presidential elections of 1889-1890, the then president Bernardo Soto Alfaro gave support weak to the candidacy of the Second Designated Ascensión Esquivel Ibarra, to whom even in the middle of the electoral year he temporarily handed over power from May 1 to August 10, but a strong popular movement emerged in favor of the former president of the Supreme Court of Justice José Joaquín Rodríguez Zeledón, who won a considerable victory in the first round of the elections, in November of that year.

Faced with popular pressure to respect the victory of the opposition and fearing that a civil war would break out, President Soto decided on November 7, 1889 to withdraw from supreme command and, without resigning, temporarily called for the exercise of power to the third appointee Carlos Durán Cartín, who on May 8, 1890 handed over the presidency to José Rodríguez Zeledón, elected for the period 1890-1894. In this way, the figure of Santamaría was used to support the arrival of the liberals to the government (turning a simple farmer into a hero), and also as a way to appease and unite the Costa Rican people. after the events of November 7 (Costa Rica thus ended an era dominated by the military figures of Tomás Guardia Gutiérrez, Próspero Fernández Oreamuno and Bernardo Soto himself).

In another sense, the image of Santamaría was recovered, at the end of February and beginning of March 1885, as an instrument of struggle and unity in the official Costa Rican discourse against the ambitions of the Guatemalan dictator Justo Rufino Barrios Auyón (1835-1885) and his project to reunify, by force of arms, the states of the Isthmus in the Union of Central America. Although in the end Costa Rica did not go to war (thanks to the defeat of Barrios by the Salvadorans), the process initiated became the axis of the first configuration of Costa Rican national identity.

In this way, as historians expose how and why, at the end of the XIX century, Santamaría was converted into the national hero of Costa Rica by liberal politicians and intellectuals, there are those who suppose that Santamaría himself is an invention. It is also common to confuse the story of Santamaría with that of the national hero of Nicaragua, Enmanuel Mongalo y Rubio, who a year earlier, on June 29, 1855, also burned an inn during what is known as the First Battle of Rivas against the filibusters., events that, although they happen in the same historical context and in the same city, and despite the similarities of their heroic acts, they are about two different characters, participating in two totally different battles carried out on two different dates. It is even It is possible that some, by stating that Santamaría was Nicaraguan and not Alajuela, confuse him with Joaquín Rosales, who tried to burn down the inn before him but died without being able to complete the task.

It is also worth mentioning that, during the Battle of Santa Rosa, almost a month before, on March 20, 1856, Colonel Lorenzo Salazar, of the Costa Rican army, asked General José Joaquín Mora Porras for permission to set fire to the Santa Rosa mansion. Rosa, where the filibusters had barricaded themselves, as a measure to evict the structure, a situation that was not necessary, since the filibusters themselves fled after the attack by the troops of Captain José María Gutiérrez (who lost his life in the attack), as they appear in the war reports written by General Mora himself. These facts suggest that the burning of an enemy fortification to evict the occupants was a war tactic frequently used at the time.

For this reason, it is useful to return to the sources of a controversy that has lasted for more than a century. Despite contrary opinions, the existence of the hero of the inn is proven.

On November 19, 1857, Manuela Carvajal, mother of Juan Santamaría, presented a request for a pension to the government (then headed by Juan Rafael Mora), in which she indicated that her son had died in the battle of Rivas while he set fire to the inn. The request was approved by the Executive Branch on November 24. The speed with which it was resolved suggests that the facts described were sufficiently known so that the study of the request was not delayed. However, both the request from Santamaría's mother and the government's resolution were only located and published in 1900.

In view of the above, the first time that Santamaría was publicly mentioned was on September 15, 1864, when the government of Jesús Jiménez Zamora asked the exiled New Granada native José de Obaldía to give a speech regarding the commemoration. of the independence of Central America. At the end of his presentation, Obaldía referred to the battle of Rivas and Santamaría:

Gentlemen, the humble hero, imitator of Ricaurte in San Mateo, is called Juan Santamaría, by name Gallego Man in his memory!

Jorge de Obaldía, September 15, 1864.

The question that arises here is: how did Obaldía find out about Santamaría? It could not have been due to the reports and chronicles of the battle then existing, since as Carlos Meléndez has demonstrated, in those texts only the officers are highlighted.

Everything indicates, therefore, that the Obaldía source was a popular oral tradition. As expressed by the notary who drafted the application presented by Carvajal in 1857, Santamaría's act is “public and notorious”.

The Guatemalan historian Lorenzo Montúfar y Rivera was the first to question Santamaría's action in 1887, at a time when liberal politicians and intellectuals had already launched the process to turn Santamaría into the national hero. Costa Rican. The response of the municipality of Alajuela, to the challenge of Montúfar, was to raise information in 1891 among former combatants of the battle of Rivas (called Information Ad Perpétuam de Juan Santamaría), which confirmed that Santamaría He had died after setting the inn on fire. Since, as the historian Rafael Ángel Méndez has pointed out, in that information the questions suggested the answers, the document prepared by the municipality of Alajuela did not cease to inspire distrust.

In 1901, a foreigner named Julio Sanfuentes claimed that Santamaría's act was an invention, and in 1926, the reformist deputy and politician Jorge Volio Jiménez described that act as a myth. Volio gave his negative vote to the bill that he intended to grant a pension of 30 colones per month to the first cousins of Alajuelense soldier Francisca and Ramona Santamaría, the leader of the Reformist Party claiming that

"we are not a historical tribunal and we will confirm a fact that many spirits point out as a myth".

Jorge Volio Jiménez.

Jorge Volio even stated that he was not convinced that the feat credited to Santamaría had been carried out and that such a situation constituted a conscientious scruple for him, which is why he could not approve such a pension request. This attitude contrasts with the one that he assumed three years before in the middle of a political campaign, where he expressed to the people of Alajuela:

“At the foot of this bronze I feel the companion of Juan Santamaría and as he offered my blood for this party, live the Reformist Party!... Long live Costa Rica! Long live Juan Santamaría!”

Jorge Volio Jiménez.

. The expressions given in 1923 are understood as a means to attract the support of the people of Alajuela to his political party, while with what was said in 1926 he seeks to maintain his validity as a controversial and controversial politician, because although he criticizes the hero, he does not supports what was raised with any source. The answer to this question was the publication, also in 1926, of The Hero's Book, by Luis Dobles Segreda, a work that included Santamaría's birth certificate. (originally published in 1891, along with the information collected by the municipality of Alajuela), his mother's pension application, the information collected by the Municipality of Alajuela in 1891, and several additional testimonies, apart from some literary pieces. This work also included an interesting work by Eladio Prado, in which it was mentioned that, according to a military census taken in November 1856, there were five people named Juan Santamaría in Alajuela (said source was “rediscovered” in 1932 by the historian Ricardo Fernández Guardia and in 1958 by the Alajuela lawyer Óscar Chacón Jinesta).

Prado's text referred to another dimension of the controversy. The chaplain of the Costa Rican army during the battle of Rivas, Francisco Calvo, noted in a document known as the “death book” a Juan Santamaría, single, from Alajuela, who died of cholera. It is not It is clear when this document was first known, but according to what Dr. Rafael Calderón Muñoz – Calderón Guardia's father – stated in 1926, when he was a young student (1880s or 1890s?) he asked the priest about that item. of death. Calvo's response was that the person who died of cholera was another Juan Santamaría.

Despite this clarification, and the data provided by Prado, which opened the possibility that it was another Juan Santamaría who died of cholera, Víctor Manuel Sanabria (the future archbishop of San José), questioned, in 1932, that Santamaría had been present at the battle of Rivas. On the other hand, the historian of the National Campaign, Rafael Obregón Loría, in a work published in 1991, accepts that Santamaría set fire to the inn, but not that he died while carrying out that task.

The most recent chapter on the controversy about whether one of those Santamaría died in the task of burning down the inn, has been written by the historian Rafael Méndez. In a bachelor's thesis defended at the School of History of the National University in 1993, and published under the title Images of power (EUNED, 2007), he released information about the battle of Rivas raised in 1891 by the Secretary of War, in which there was no manipulation of the questions. The result is of great interest, since not all those interviewed referred to Santamaría, but those who did confirmed his death in the battle of Rivas. Méndez also located a record prepared by the Secretary of War of those who died between April and May 1856: there is a Juan Santamaría. I don't know what he died of, but his name appears along with others that, according to With the information available, they died in the battle of Rivas. This information has turned out to be invaluable, because in addition to confirming the presence of Santamaría in Rivas, this new documentation offered interesting perspectives on the perception that multiple ex-combatants had not only of the Alajuelense hero, but of a captain of highly recognized value named José María Rojas, the which, according to various testimonies, played a fundamental role when the Costa Rican militias were taken by surprise on the morning of April 11, 1856. These sources indicate that the aforementioned Captain Rojas bravely confronted the filibusters who intended to take the Main Barracks and that Had it not been for their participation, the outcome of the Battle of Rivas would most likely have been different.

Synthesis

Arguments to deny its existence

• The use of his figure by the liberal politicians and intellectuals of the time to give legitimacy to his government, helped to support his opposition to the incorporation of Costa Rica into the Central American union promoted by Justo Rufino Barrios, raising a "figure of the people" to the status of national hero, which makes some suppose that Santamaría is an invention.
• The resemblance of his story with that of the Nicaraguan hero Enmanuel Mongalo, based on the burning of a month full of filibusters with a tea in the city of Rivas, despite the fact that both events occurred in two distinct battles and in two different dates (29 June 1855 and 11 April 1856) and that Mongalo did not die in the act but many years later in the city of Granada (Nicar). It should also be noted that this argument is often based on popular ignorance that between 1855 and 1857 there were four different battles in Rivas against the filibusters. It should also be mentioned that it is possible for some people to confuse Santamaría with Nicaraguan Joaquín Rosales, who tried, unsuccessfully, to burn the monthon before him, by dying down by the enemy fire.
• His denial was made by some relevant figures such as the Guatemalan historian Lorenzo Montúfar, the deputy Jorge Volio and the priest Víctor Manuel Sanabria.

Evidence in favor of its existence

• The existence of a strong oral tradition that speaks of the fact.
• The existence of his baptismal faith in the parish of Alajuela, where a Juan María son of Manuela Santamaría is mentioned "Gallego", baptized by the priest José Antonio Oreamuno in the presence of Micaela Jiménez, the godmother of the baptized, and of unknown father.
• The request for a pension from Manuela Santamaría in 1857, being president Juan Rafael Mora Porras, where mention is made of the death of his son in the burning of the monthon on April 11, 1856 in Rivas, a fact that is "public and notorious" (that is, that everyone knew at that time), and that is confirmed with the speed with which the government approved the request (in a matter of days).
• José de Obaldía's speech in 1864, where he mentions Santamaría and his heroic act in Rivas (it is worth noting that this discourse is given at a time prior to the elevation of Juan Santamaría to the category of national hero, which is given only up to 1891), which confirms that the act of Santamaría was a known and public domain.
• The research of Eladio Prado compiled in "The Hero's Book"of Luis Dobles Segreda where mention is made of the existence of five people named Juan Santamaría in the Costa Rican army, all of the province of Alajuela, rescued by Ricardo Fernández Guardia in 1932 and by Oscar Chacón Jinesta in 1958.
• The information Ad Perpetuam by Juan Santamaría prepared by the Municipality of Alajuela in 1891 and compiled in "The Hero's Book" by Luis Dobles Segreda in 1926.
• The thorough investigation of Rafael Obregón Loria that places Juan Santamaría in the battle of Rivas participating in the burning of the Month, although it does not confirm his death in that task. The work even presents a reconstructed plane of the stage of combat, of the positions that the bands occupied in the southern Nicaraguan city and of the specific place that the Alajuelense soldier had in the battle. The account is necessary to indicate the role played by the Hedgehog and the way death came to him once he executed the memorable feat of burning a lion of the month, where much of the enemy forces took refuge.
• The spontaneous, undirected testimonies of the veterans of 1856 collected by the War Secretariat in 1891, where not all mention Santamaría, but those who do, mention their death in the battle of Rivas while burning the Month.
• The record prepared by the War Secretariat in 1891 of the deceased between April and May of 1856 contains a dead Juan Santamaría in action in the battle of Rivas, although it is not mentioned how he died.

He existed but died of cholera

In favor

• The existence of a death certificate signed by the army chaplain Francisco Calvo, which mentions a single Juan Santamaría of Alajuela, who died of cholera.

Against

• The testimony of Rafael Calderón Muñoz that Father Calvo told him that the deceased by cholera was another Juan Santamaría, an argument based on the work of Eladio Prado that demonstrates the existence of five Juan Santamaría de Alajuela in the army during 1856.
• Again, the uninduced testimonies of the veterans of 1856 collected by the War Secretariat in 1891, where not all mention Santamaría, but those who do, mention their death in the battle of Rivas while burning the month.
• Once again, the record prepared by the War Secretariat in 1891 of the deceased between April and May 1856, containing a dead Juan Santamaría in action in the battle of Rivas, although it is not mentioned how he died.

Conclusion

As seen, despite the differences in detail, there is a solid and consistent oral tradition that begins with the request of Santamaría's mother, goes through Obaldía's speech and culminates in the information collected by the Secretary of War in 1891, which confirms that Juan Santamaría existed, that he was present at the battle of Rivas, that he was one, among others, of those who participated in the burning of the inn, and that he died while carrying out that task.. In this way, as the historian Iván Molina states,

The fact that the existence of Santamaría is still in doubt at present, the role that he played in the burning of the Month and his death during the execution of such an act reveals, in part, the ignorance of the historiographic debate and its progress; and in part, it indicates the existence of deep prejudices against oral traditions, of popular origin, as a source of knowledge.

or as the historian Rafael A. Méndez maintains,

It is clear that the documentary sources that since the nineteenth century were made of public knowledge, show that any doubt about their physical existence (the one of Santamaría), are fundamentally speculations lacking from sources that support affirmations of such nature.

Popular culture

The life of Juan Santamaría, like the battle of Rivas, is graphically narrated in number 32 of the Mexican comic magazine Aventuras de la vida real, dated April 1, 1960, titled Juan Santamaría El Hedgehog.