Santa Rosa´s Battle​

In the 19th century, Central America was beset by political problems. An American guy, William Walker was looking for recognition and power. He moved to Nicaragua with the idea of “conquer” Central America. He wanted to establish English-speaking slavery states in Latin America. His main goal was to become Nicaraguan president in order to start his evil plan. He believed in the doctrine of manifest destiny, and established himself as the guy who could help Nicaragua to be a better country, but his real intentions were to control Central America as a solo country, a manifesto he named, “Five or None.” As soon as Walker started enlisted people to his “army”, the Costa Rica´s President in that time, Juan Rafael Mora Porras, saw Walker´s intentions. On February 27th 1856, Costa Rica declared war on Nicaragua and called all Costa Ricans to join forces and fight for their freedom. The Costa Rican Army started the march on March 4th from San José to the Nicaraguan border, led by the president. On March 12th, they arrived to Liberia, where another group of soldiers under the leadership of Jose Maria Cañas joined the march. William Walker got news about what was happening in Costa Rica, and then he decided to enlist more people to his army. The filibusters group was supported by French and German troops, under the leadership of colonel Schlessinger, which entered Costa Rica through the road that joined Nicaragua with Liberia. After hours and hours, the filibusters passed by the Hacienda Santa Rosa, they were very exhausted. In the mean time, the Costa Rican army kept walking on the way to Nicaragua. On March 20th, the Costa Ricans arrived to Hacienda Santa Rosa and the battle began. Civilians from every corner of the country and armed with rifles, sabres, and bayonets, began the attack, surrounded the filibusters, who were taken by surprise after having stationed themselves in the Santa Rosa Casona and its corrals. Everything happened very fast, the German company left the field, while the French also escaped from the area they had attempted to occupy. After 14 minutes fighting, the Costa Ricans won the battle. ​