A historical reconstruction of the forgotten river campaign (1856–1857)
The Bitter Waters of the San Juan is a historical novel based on primary sources that reconstructs the fluvial and strategic dimension of the Transit Campaign (1856–1857), a Costa Rican military operation that has remained on the margins of official memory. Through the figure of Major Máximo
The book relies on campaign diaries, military testimonies, 19th-century archives, and international documentation to narrate with rigor and narrative tension the series of operations that allowed Costa Rica to control the most important interoceanic artery in the hemisphere before the Panama Canal: the Transit Route, which connected San Juan del Norte with Lake Nicaragua.
The novel combines documentary precision with deeply human scenes: hunger, fevers, improvisation, naval confrontations, and the daily life of soldiers and civilians trapped in a war for which Costa Rica was not prepared. The narration follows Blanco and his fluvial column from Sarapiquí to El Castillo, La Trinidad, and the Fort of San Carlos, revealing a theater of operations very different from the one consecrated by the national historiography centered in Rivas and Santa Rosa.
The work highlights how, through tactics of fluvial assault, ambushes, deceptions, and surprise captures, the Costa Ricans managed to seize nine steamboats, completely interrupt the filibuster logistics, and force Walker’s operational collapse in the Caribbean. This military dominance had profound geopolitical implications: it affected U.S. interests, altered global trade routes, and temporarily redefined regional stability.
However, the book is not limited to reconstructing the campaign. It explores the political dimension of its subsequent historical erasure. The rise of Máximo Blanco—whose popularity and military prestige grew rapidly after the campaign—generated tensions with political figures of the time, particularly within the elites linked to President Juan Rafael Mora. After the war, the official account was selectively shaped, exalting some episodes and omitting others. The fluvial campaign, its strategic importance, and Blanco’s role were reduced to marginal mentions.
The novel shows how this silence was maintained in the historiographical tradition of the Second Republic, which consolidated a “peaceful” national imaginary by carefully selecting the military episodes that would adapt to its identity project. In this sense, The Bitter Waters of the San Juan provides a new reading on the formation of national memory and questions deeply rooted narratives.
In addition to the historical value, the novel displays great literary force: sensory scenes of jungle, mud, fever, and gunpowder; characters with moral depth; internal tensions within the troop; and a landscape that becomes a protagonist. The San Juan River—geographic and symbolic space—functions as a living border where geopolitics, conflict, betrayal, and resistance converge.
Overall, the work constitutes a historical vindication, a proposal for a critical rereading of the 19th century in Central America, and a significant contribution to the debate on sovereignty, territory, and memory in Costa Rica. Its narrative, supported by verified documents, opens a necessary conversation about how official history is constructed—and manipulated.
