Bribri people

The name "Bribri," according to contemporary accounts by some Bribri elders, comes from their word for "strong." The earliest written accounts of their people come from Spanish colonial officials and Franciscan missionaries in the early 17th century, who referred to the Bribri and the neighboring Cábecar as the "Talamanca."

Mission Santa Barbara, in California, USA, one of the missions established by the Franciscan order

Bribri forces were able to conquer the neighboring Cábecar and defeat other tribes in the Talamanca region to establish the Kingdom of Talamanca prior to the early 19th century, while a splinter group settled to the west of the Talamanca range at some point towards the end of the 19th century, although these events are poorly documented in written Spanish sources.[9]

Geographic isolation kept Spanish settlers, commerce, and agricultural practices out of the Talamanca region during the colonial period, as did resistance by Indigenous groups across the Caribbean coast of Costa Rica. Armed resistance by Indigenous groups in the Talamanca region in the 17th and 18th centuries destroyed Franciscan missions and halted the extension of Spanish power. This allowed the Bribri to preserve their language, spiritual practices, and some elements of their culture. However, some Bribri communities which fell under Spanish control were forcibly resettled to the north and in highland regions of Costa Rica in response to resistance by Indigenous groups, ultimately being assimilated into Spanish culture and no longer practicing old traditions.[10][9]

While able to maintain their political power and cultural practices, the Bribri suffered from depopulation in the colonial period from Old World diseases as well as conflict with the Spanish. Raids by Miskitu forces from the north along the Caribbean coast targeting Spanish and Indigenous settlements alike further depopulated the Bribri and forced them away from the coast to inland areas from the 17th to 19th centuries.[11]

By the mid 19th century, the Bribri and Cábecar were organized under a hereditary Bribri nobility led by various kings (often with multiple people who claimed the role), along with a useköl, the highest Cábecar religious authority. The Kingdom of Talamanca received official recognition of its political leadership from the government of Costa Rica in 1867, although the US marine John Lyon who had settled in the region was appointed as director de reducciones, or director of reductions (a kind of Spanish settlement), in Talamanca and held much of the power to govern as recognized by the national government.[9][12][13]

The Talamanca Mountain Range from the ground

One of the last kings of Talamanca, Antonio Saldaña, came to power in 1880 after the previous king, William Forbes, was accused of homicide and declared to be in a state of rebellion by the Costa Rican government, leading to his removal from power. Saldaña ruled about 3,200 people from the seat of his power in Túnsula. Saldaña was resistant to policy from the Costa Rican government which could have led to the cultural assimilation of the Bribri, like the occupation of their land, the presence of teachers, or their service in the national military, though he did not support policy which would have abandoned the region either.[12][13]

Saldaña came into conflict with the United Fruit Company, a major US-based company with significant control over the banana industry in the Caribbean and Central America, in the early 20th century. The development of United Fruit plantations followed the company's construction of railroads, and as the company expanded north from Panama its railways pushed into the formerly geographically isolated Talamanca Valley and the Bribri heartland in 1908. Saldaña sought to resist the expansion of United Fruit land claims in his territory, but in 1910 died from poisoning, as did his nephew and successor 8 days later. While no definitive proof demonstrates that the United Fruit Company was responsible for the poisonings, many contemporary observers believed they were, and regardless of guilt the poisonings ended the Talamanca monarchy and paved the way for United Fruit's expropriation of Bribri land.[11]

A banana plantation

The United Fruit Company was able to use the legal system to their advantage to force the Bribri off the most fertile lands in the Talamanca Valley. Local intermediaries were able to purchase Bribri land, acting as landlords before selling the legal title to United Fruit. The company could then declare the local inhabitants to be squatters, and by providing minimal financial compensation, tricking people into signing away their legal rights to the land, or having workers clear the forests and disrupt settlements by force, were able to displace the Bribri from their old heartland.[11]

The Bribri remained in the Talamanca region, although forced off lands useful for banana growing to marginal lands where they continued to practice subsistence agriculture and raise livestock. While some Bribri worked part time for United Fruit, most were never fully incorporated into the workforce because of cultural barriers as they insisted on working on their own terms and schedules. However, the extension of their system of bartering to plantation workers and other banana farmers, as well as the sale of their excess produce, partially integrated their farming into a broader economy.[11]

United Fruit's operations in the Talamanca region faced plant diseases which ravaged their banana crops and flooding which damaged the infrastructure they built. While some contemporary studies suggest that United Fruit policy, like monocrop plantations frequented by workers traveling from infected farms which rapidly spread disease,[14] and deforestation which removed barriers to the flow of rainwater into the Sixaola River and intensified flooding, were to blame, Bribri shamans at the time took credit for the devastation these forces wreaked on United Fruit's operations. The company ultimately abandoned its banana plantations in Talamanca in 1931.[11]

After United Fruit left, only a small population of Costa Rican and West Indian farmers remained in the Talamanca region, and some Bribri communities were able to resettle the Talamanca Valley. While the Union Oil Company began to operate in the region, they did not displace Bribri communities to the degree that the United Fruit Company had. The area has remained fairly inaccessible to outsiders and culturally and economically independent since United Fruit left the region. However, some Bribri people outside of the Talamanca region live in areas which have been more accessible and have a higher degree of economic integration with the rest of Costa Rica.[9]

Map of Indigenous Territories in Costa Rica, 2009. Bribri reservations are pictured in orange.

In Costa Rica in 1973, the Legislative Assembly of Costa Rica charged the National Committee on Indigenous Affairs (CONAI) with promoting projects on behalf of indigenous communities. In 1976, President Daniel Oduber Quiros signed Executive Decree No. 5904-G, defining the terms of establishing indigenous reserves. Later that year, Executive Decree No. 6036-G established several indigenous reserves, including for the Bribri, which the Legislative Assembly ratified on November 16, 1977, in Indigenous Law No. 6172.[15] In Panama, while a system for semi-autonomous Indigenous regions exists in the country under the comarca system, the Bribri population is relatively small and as such has not yet been granted a comarca. However, the passage of Law Number 72 by the National Assembly of Panama in 2008 provided a pathway to grant legal title to collective landholdings for Indigenous groups like the Bribri without comarcas.[16]

In Costa Rica, the recognition of Bribri reservations granted them legal title to some of their traditional lands. However, as parts of this territory were legally occupied by non-Indigenous settlers prior to 1977, some of these settlers remain on territory which after 1977 has legally belonged to the Bribri, and have not yet accepted compensation for their removal. This has led Bribri activists and organizers, or land defenders, to politically organize to reclaim their traditional territory within reservation bounds. Some activists have faced threats from the people and business interests seeking to remain on the land which is now recognized as belonging to the Bribri, including the Bribri activist Sergio Rojas who was murdered in 2019, following threats to his life over his land recovery efforts.[17] In Panama, Bribri activists strive for a collective land title under Law Number 72, part of efforts for the legal recognition of collective landholdings which have been ongoing for over 30 years. Without legal protection, some Bribri activists, including King Joaquín González, fear they may be displaced or assimilated by neighboring Indigenous groups or settlers, or that the forests necessary for their subsistence economy may be stripped away by logging operations.[18]

While the Bribri and Cábecar peoples inhabit some of the same regions and maintain similar political goals, the groups have been reported to have a history of ethnic tension, including Bribri discrimination against Cábecar people. Some Bribri political organizers see the restoration of old institutions as necessary for political advocacy, though this is a strategy some Cábecar activists have argued excludes other Indigenous groups. However, Indigenous advocates have expressed the hope that tensions will be resolved through dialogue.[17]