For more than a century and a half, Costa Rica has told its national history as a succession of land deeds, enlightened political decisions and an early peaceful vocation. However, in that carefully constructed narrative there is an uncomfortable gap: the Transit Campaign (1856-1857) and the decisive role the country played in the control of the San Juan River, one of the most important geopolitical arteries in Central America.
This gap is not anecdotal. It is structural. And its consequences extend far beyond the past.
A river that was a border, weapon and op
In 1856, the San Juan River was not just a geographical feature. It was a strategic inter-oceanic corridor, used by Cornelius Vanderbilt’s Transit Company to link the Atlantic and Pacific long before the existence of the Panama Canal. Controlling the San Juan meant controlling the flow of people, goods, arms and power in the Central American isthmus.
When William Walker and the filibusters seized that route, Costa Rica responded not only on land, but -and this is key- on the river. Under the command of Major Máximo Blanco Rodríguez, an improvised, ill-equipped and politically abandoned Costa Rican force executed one of the most audacious river campaigns of the 19th century in Latin America: the capture of nine steamships, the effective blockade of the inter-oceanic route and the logistical suffocation of the filibustering project.
Without that campaign, the war against Walker would not have been won.
And yet, that campaign disappeared from the center of the national narrative.
Silence was no accident
Every nation selects what to remember. But not all forgetting is innocent.
At the end of the 19th century, Costa Rica entered a process of political and symbolic reordering. The elites who inherited power after the fall of Juan Rafael Mora needed a stable, less conflictive, less military and more functional to their interests. In this context, certain figures were uncomfortable. Certain campaigns, difficult to fit in. Certain protagonists, too visible.
The result was a progressive silence, first tacit and then institutionalized. This silence was not limited to the 19th century. It was adopted, normalized and reinforced in the 20th century, especially after the creation of the Second Republic, when Costa Rica consolidated an international identity based on demilitarization, pacifism and democratic exceptionality.
In this new narrative, river warfare, armed control of an inter-oceanic corridor and the figure of a successful military commander had no place.
Amputated history, weakened right
Here appears a crucial consequence that is rarely discussed.
For more than a century, Costa Rica has faced litigation, treaties, arbitration awards and international judgments related to the San Juan River and the border with Nicaragua: the Cañas-Jerez Treaty, the Cleveland Award, the Alexander Convention, the judgments of the International Court of Justice in 2009 and 2015.
In all these processes, the country has defended valid legal rights. But it has done so without fully integrating its own historical experience on the river, without clearly claiming that it was a sovereign, military and logistical actor in that space since the 19th century.
The result has been a legally correct, but historically incomplete defense.
When a State renounces its own strategic memory, it negotiates from a weakened position. Not because it loses formal rights, but because it loses narrative, context and political weight.
From the past to the future: why this debate matters today
Today, the world is once again looking at Central America with strategic interest. New global players – China, the United States, international consortiums – are studying logistics routes, inter-oceanic corridors, port infrastructure and projects that will reshape global trade.
In this scenario, the San Juan River is once again relevant.
But a country that has not fully integrated its history into this river runs the risk of once again becoming a spectator of other people’s decisions, rather than an informed interlocutor.
Recovering the memory of the Transit Campaign is not an exercise in nostalgia. It is an act of historical responsibility. It means understanding that sovereignty is not only a line on a map or a court ruling, but also the awareness of what was lost, what was lost and what can still be recovered.
A trilogy to rebuild what was fragmented
The Bitter Waters of the San Juan begins this process from the historical narrative: reconstructing the campaign, giving a face and voice back to those who were erased and showing how the river was the scene of one of the country’s most audacious decisions.
Silenced Waters will address the second level: how and why this episode was eliminated from the national narrative, and how this oblivion conditioned foreign policy, law and collective memory.
A third volume will look ahead: the disputes, the missed opportunities and the future possibilities of a country that has finally decided to come to terms with its entire history.
Because no country can defend its future well if it has not fully understood its past.
