Huetar

The Huetar were the strongest Indigenous people of Costa Rica on Spanish arrival, holding the centre of the country from the Pacific to the Caribbean in rival kingdoms. The greatest were Garabito, Pacaca and the eastern realm of El Guarco and Correque. Their Chibchan speech was a lingua franca across the isthmus, though its speakers often warred.

Society ranked chiefs, priests and sukia shamans above commoners and slaves. They farmed maize, beans and manioc and shared the Intermediate Area culture, famed for carved stone metates and funerary human sacrifice.

From the 1560s the Spanish subdued them one by one; even Garabito and Fernando Correque swore vassalage, and the people were moved into reducciones under encomienda. Epidemics and forced labour broke their society, and by 1675 the Central Valley Indians all spoke Spanish; the Huetar language survived only in place names.