History of Nicoya

If the above hypothesis is true, what does modern-day Nicoya represent historically? Among other tools of colonial administration, the Spanish crown created a policy called congregación, or the forced resettlement of native peoples into nucleated settlements in order to more closely watch and control their charges. The evidence at hand lead one to further hypothesize that the present-day Nicoya is the product of Spanish colonial congregación, formed by the forced amalgamation of people from the various pre-Hispanic settlements dispersed throughout the region. When this may have been done, and under what circumstances, are unknown. As mentioned above, the historical documents, which would have recorded such an event, would have been destroyed in the 1783 fire that completely destroyed the colonial archives in Nicoya. Further research in other repositories may yet provide confirmation for this interpretation.

Colonial Nicoya

Nicoya was the largest indigenous chiefdom encountered by the Spanish when they first entered northwestern Costa Rica in 1523. Historical records are mute on what these people called themselves or the precise detail of their political organization. Other than the fact that they spoke a language belonging to the Oto-Manguean language family, nothing is known of their tongue. According to records from that first encounter in 1523, over 6,000 souls were saved by baptism performed by the expedition's priest

During the first fifty years of Conquest, Nicoya was of great local importance as a transshipment point between the more active Spanish colonies in Nicaragua and Panama; a staging area and