The history of Costa Rica cannot be told without recognizing the important sociocultural contribution of the Afro-Caribbean community. In 1980, the Union of Educators in Costa Rica realized that a truly multicultural and ethnically diverse society needs to take time to celebrate its roots, and thus El Día del Negro (Afro-Costa Rican Day) was born. The final day of August was chosen in observance of the First Convention of the Universal Negro Improvement Association, which took place at Madison Square Garden in 1920.

African heritage in Costa Rica dates back to the colonial period, when Spanish conquistadors brought a few slaves to the country in light of the difficulties they faced in enslaving the indigenous. The first significant arrival of Afro-Caribbeans, however, would take place in 1872 after a ship with nearly a thousand Jamaicans aboard arrived from Kingston. These Jamaican workers built the early railroad network in Costa Rica, and by 1927 there were about 20,000 living in Limon (about 55 percent of the population of the port city).

The early Afro-Costa Rican workers moved from the railroad to the banana plantations and from the docks to the municipality. Many of our agricultural advances in the early 20^th century were achieved thanks to the know-how of farmers who came from the Caribbean islands. Afro-Costa Ricans learned from the indigenous and viceversa.

 

Afro-Costa Rican Cultural Heritage

Some of Costa Rica’s dearest cultural symbols are based on the Afro-Caribbean experience. Case in point:

• Gallo pinto comes from the timeless Caribbean “rice and beans” recipe.
• The marimba (bamboo and wooden xylophone) is an Afro-Caribbean musical instrument.
• Bananas and sugar cane, two major crops native to Asia, were brought here by the Jamaicans because their ancestors had mastered cultivation in the African continent.
• The palm oil extraction process is of African origin.

We cannot forget about Mekatelyu, a dialect derived from Jamaican Creole English, or about calypso music, which was brought to Limon by people from Trinidad and Tobago.

To learn more about the Afro-Costa Rican experience, please visit Corredor Cultural del Caribe.