National Identity, Collective Memory, and Cultural Anti-Imperialism By Marco Antonio Cabrera G

375 Pages·2013·2.1 MB·English

The Legacy of the Filibuster War: National Identity, Collective Memory, and
Cultural Anti-Imperialism
By
Marco Antonio Cabrera Geserick

A Dissertation Presented in Partial Fulfillment
Of the Requirements for the Degree
Doctor of Philosophy

Approved April 2013 by the
Graduate Supervisory Committee:
Lynn Stoner, Chair
Victoria Thompson
Martha Few

ARIZONA STATE UNIVERSITY
May 2013
ABSTRACT
The Legacy of the Filibuster War: National Identity, Collective Memory,
and Cultural Anti-Imperialism is a dissertation project analyzing how the
Filibuster War becomes a staple for Costa Rican national identity. This work
presents several challenges to traditional theories of modernization in the creation
of nationalism. By focusing on the development of cultural features defined by
the transformation of collective memory, this project argues that national identity
is a dynamic process defined according to local, national, and international
contexts. Modernization theories connect the development of nationalism to the
period of consolidation of the nation-state, usually during the late nineteenth
century and early twentieth century. The Costa Rican case demonstrates that,
while modernization coincides with the creation of symbols of official
nationalism, the Filibuster War became a symbol of national identity beginning in
the 1850s, and it has been changing throughout the twentieth century. Threats to
sovereignty and imperialist advances served to promote the memory of the
Filibuster War, while local social transformations, as the abolition of the army and
internal political conflict forced drastic changes on the interpretation of the war
and the establishment of a national narrative that adjusts to social transformation.

i
To Diana, Lynn, Edgar, and Barbara

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I really appreciate the help of all of those that collaborated with this
dissertation. First, I have to thank the faculty and graduate students at the History
Department at ASU. Their general comments and interest helped me to better
visualize the project. Special thanks to Dr. Lynn Stoner and Dr. Victoria
Thompson for their constant support and encouragement. They, along with Dr.
Martha Few, believed in me, stood behind me, and guided my steps.
For their enourmous support and help finding treasure after treasure, I
have to thank the staff at the different centers I visited in search of documents and
information: In Nicaragua, the Universidad Centroamericana (UCA), and the
Instituto de Historia de Nicaragua y Centroamerica. In Costa Rica, the Biblioteca
Nacional, the Archivos Nacionales, and especially the Museo Histórico Cultural
Juan Santamaría, in Alajuela. I have to commend the work of Dhamuza Coudin,
Priscila Alfaro, and Raúl Aguilar at the Museo for preserving the memory of the
Filibuster War.
Of course, family needs a special place, since they had to sacrifice our
time together all these years. I would like to say sorry to my parents Edgar
Cabrera Lopez and Barbara Geserick Recknagel, as well as to my siblings, Maya,
Xela, and Edgardo Cabrera Geserick for having to leave them in order to pursue
an important goal in my life.
I have to recognize colleagues and friends that illustrated my
understanding of the Filibuster War and its legacy: Patricia Fumero, Dora María
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Téllez, Ana Margarita Vijil, David Díaz Arias, Miguel Ayerdis, José Cal
Montoya, Raúl Aguilar Piedra.
Finally, a great thank you to Diana, who is always there for me, cheering
for me, supporting me, loving me, as well as being the best intellectual partner
anybody could have.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS
Page
LIST OF FIGURES ………………………………………………………….. vi
CHAPTER
1 INTRODUCTION …………………………………………… 1
2 SCHOLARS, MYTHS, AND INTERPRETATIONS..…….…. 44
3 THE FILIBUSTER WAR…………………………..........…… 107
4 BEFORE APRIL 11TH ……………………………………… 168
5 THE RETURN OF THE FILIBUSTER AND
CULTURAL ANTI-IMPERIALISM ……..……………… 232
6 CELEBRATING THE AVENGING TORCH ……………… 271
7 SANTA ROSA, OR FAILING
ON INVENTING TRADITIONS …………………………… 315
8 CONCLUSIONS ……………………………………………. 341
BIBLIOGRAPHY …………………………………………………………… 351

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LIST OF FIGURES
Figure Page
1. Transit Route and Map of Costa Rica and
Nicaragua during the Filibuster War ……………………….. 115
2. Coat of Arms, Municipality of Alajuela …………………… 252
3. Cartoon, Centennary of Juan Santamaria ………………….. 268
4. Statue of Juan Santamaría, Alajuela………………………… 272
5. Santa Rosa’s ceremony, more soldiers than students ……… 329
6. Cartoon, Brother Juan …………………………………….... 336

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Chapter 1
INTRODUCTION
On September 12th, 1860, William Walker stood in front of an execution
squad on a desolate Honduran beach. He had just been found guilty of
filibustering. For almost five years, Walker tried to conquer all of Central
America with a mercenary army formed by adventurers hired in the United States.
Influenced by the ideas of Manifest Destiny, they conquered Nicaragua in 1855,
reestablishing slavery and developing an Anglo-controlled government. In 1856,
Walker’s forces invaded Costa Rica. His dreams of conquest were represented in
a flag he created; its motto was “five or none.” Costa Ricans rallied to defend
their sovereignty, and along other Central American forces, defeated Walker.
Before the firing squadron, Walker insisted that he was the legal President of
Nicaragua. However,, of the five Central American republics he had conquered,
he was president of none.
Since then, the Filibuster War serves as a symbol of resistance and
national unity in Central America and the source of romanticized tales of a lost
empire in the United States. If Walker had succeeded, he could have annexed the
region to the United States or at least have founded a Central American slave
republic. This could have represented important support to the southern
Confederate States during the U.S. Civil War. If annexed to the United States,
Central America could have tipped the congressional majority in favor of
southern slavery. Instead, an improvised army formed by small-land farmers
under the leadership of an energetic Costa Rican president stopped the filibusters’
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advance. For Costa Ricans, defeating Walker generated a certainty about their
ability to defend their homes, families, and national values. The memory of the
Filibuster War continues to define the national identity of Nicaragua and Costa
Rica.
Costa Rica presents a unique case for the study of nationalism and national
identity because it challenges the hegemonic Eurocentric models that discourage
nuanced examinations and alternative interpretations. In Costa Rica, as in Latin
America, national identity does not precede the nation, which already challenges
theories of ethnonationalism. Instead, it is generally accepted that, in the
Americas, the state was created and only then a national identity followed.1 In
Costa Rica, national identity developed with the nation, and not as a product of it.
That is, national identity reinforced the consolidation of the state at the same time
that the state created a national narrative. Another difference between Costa Rica
and the rest of the Americas is that Independence Day is not the major holiday
connected to the nation; instead, it is the Filibuster War which occupies the most
important symbolic value for Costa Rican national identity. Commemorations of
the Filibuster War also challenge traditional modernization theory, demonstrating
that Costa Rican national identity has been defined both by the intervention of the

1 Hebe Clementi. Formación de la Conciencia Americana. Buenos Aires: Editorial Pléyade,
1972. Sara Castro-Klarén and John Charles Chasteen. Beyond Imagined Communities. Baltimore:
The Johns Hopkins Universty Press, 2003. Don H. Doyle and Marco Antonio Pamplona.
Nationalism in the New World. Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press, 2006. Eastman, Scott.
Preaching Spanish Nationalism across the Hispanic Atlantic, 1759-1823. Baton Rouge:
Louisiana State University, 2012. Enríquez Solano, Francisco, comp. Fin de Siglo XIX e
identidad nacional en México y Centroamérica. (Alajuela: Museo Histórico Cultural Juan
Santamaría, 2000). Hobsbawm, Eric J. Nations and Nationalism since 1780: Programme,
Myth,Reality. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1990.
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state as much as by popular discourse, contesting the theories that national
identity is the result of a top-down imposition. This is reflected especially in the
celebrations of Juan Santamaría on April 11th. Finally, the victory over the
filibusters not only helped Costa Ricans to establish the nation as a viable project,
but it shaped its relationship with the hegemonic United States. While relations
between Latin America and the United States usually fall into the categories of
victim-perpetrator, Costa Rican national identity is based on successful resistance,
establishing a discourse that does not fit postcolonial theory. Costa Rican active
and successful opposition to U.S. hegemony allowed it to create a discourse of
anti-cultural Imperialism, in which Costa Ricans are always in control of their
own sovereignty.
This dissertation analyzes the legacy of the Filibuster War, with a special
focus on Costa Rica, the country in which memory of this war has developed like
nowhere else. The main questions asked in this dissertation relate to the
construction of national identity: How did the memory of the war influence the
sense of collective identity of the participant countries? How has this war been
remembered? Why, in Costa Rica, is the annual celebration of Walker’s defeat
given greater importance than the commemoration of Independence Day? The last
question is especially relevant when a comparison is made with almost all other
countries in the Americas, where Independence Day continues to be the only basis
of official national identity and a legitimizing element for the state. The
underlying topic is the conceptualization of the nation-state in Costa Rica. The
legacy of the Filibuster War presents a unique case that deserves study through
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