Limón conjures up images of Costa Rica's coconut-fringed Caribbean coast. Although the province does indeed extend the length of this coast -- from the mouth of the San Juan River in the north, to the mouth of the Sixaola River on the Panamanian border -- the southern sector includes a large area of mountainous terrain that stretches up to the country's highest peak, Mt. Chirripó, in the Talamanca Cordillera. Likewise, the provincial boundaries also climb to over 2,000 m. elevation on the northeastern flank of Turrialba Volcano.
Despite the rise in elevation from sea level to 3,820 meters, Limón is the only one of Costa Rica's seven provinces to be entirely on the Caribbean side of the Continental Divide, and thus its weather is directly affected by the flow of warm, moist air brought in off this body of water by the northeast trade winds. The result is a climate with no pronounced dry season, even though it does tend to be less rainy in the months of March, April, September, and October, and typically rains the most in June, July, August, November, and December. The lowland regions remain warm and humid year-round, while the higher portions are both cooler and wetter.
Christopher Columbus, or Cristobal Colón as he is known in Spanish, and his crew were the first Europeans to lay eyes on the shores and forest-covered mountains of Costa Rica. On the great Admiral's fourth and final voyage to the Americas, in 1502, he anchored near what is now the port city and provincial capital of Limón. His brief dealings with the native people he met on the mainland were apparently good-natured, yet this benevolent interaction was not to be the norm during the centuries to come.
Spanish settlement of Costa Rica came not from the Atlantic but from the Pacific side of the country. Given the mountainous barrier between the Central Valley and the Caribbean lowlands, as well as the dense forests and high rainfall characteristic of the latter region, would-be colonists were faced with a real challenge. The periodic expeditions organized with, at least in part, the purpose of establishing permanent settlements in the Caribbean region inevitably met with failure. Their cruel treatment of the indigenous people did not help the Spaniards in their objective either, since the natives in the area wholeheartedly resisted colonization.
Thus, throughout the three centuries of the colonial period, while the Central Valley and northern Pacific portions of Costa Rica were being progressively dominated by settlers from Spain, the Atlantic wilderness continued to be an untamed frontier.
The one small exception was the Valley of Matina where a number of farms existed for the purpose of growing cacao -- the source of cocoa and chocolate, which are produced from the seeds. Although it was a long and difficult journey from the Central Valley to Matina, near the Caribbean coast, the merchants from Cartago who invested in the cacao farms considered it a worthy enterprise given the otherwise limited opportunities for commercial trade with other colonies.
Originally, the farms were worked by native people who had been captured and put into slavery. This system met with problems, including legal ones because the authorities officially forbid such treatment of the native population. The solution was the purchase of African slaves from elsewhere in the region. Each worker was given a certain number of plants to tend, and often, after several years service, was given his freedom.
This agricultural activity persisted for about 150 years, but never really contributed significantly to the country's economic progress, and by the time of independence from Spain in 1821 had been all but abandoned. It is interesting to note that owing to the scarcity of coinage in colonial times, cacao beans were sometimes used in lieu of currency, or as a basis for bartering.
The real opening of Costa Rica's eastern frontier did not come until the second half of the 19th century. In 1867, the site for a Caribbean port was chosen, and it is said that growing on the spot was an old lemon tree, or limón.
To make the port accessible from the interior of the country, the government decided to construct a railroad and contracted the services of the North American entrepreneur, Minor Keith, in exchange for 300,000 hectares of land in the Caribbean lowlands, plus other benefits.
Keith established banana plantations on the land and brought in Afro-American workers from Jamaica to tend the plantations and build the railroad, thus changing not only the physical environment -- which for thousands of years had been rain forest -- but also the cultural milieu of the region.
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