When Figueres returned to Costa Rica in 1944 following two years in exile for criticising President Rafael Ángel Calderón Guardia, he established the Democratic Party, which a year later transformed into the Social Democratic Party. Political career Return to Costa Rica, the Caribbean Legion, and the Costa Rica Civil War (1944–1948) His sharecroppers could either sell hemp grown on his plantation to him at market price for use in his rope factory, or sell it elsewhere if they were offered a better price. Describing himself as a "farmer-socialist", he built housing and provided medical care and recreation for his workers and established a community vegetable farm and a dairy with free milk for workers' children. įigueres became a successful coffee grower and rope manufacturer, employing more than 1,000 sharecroppers and factory laborers. He named the farm "The Endless Struggle". Figueres returned to Costa Rica in 1928 and bought a farm in Tarrazú. There he studied hydroelectric engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. In 1924 he left for Boston, United States, on a work and study trip. Figueres was the eldest of the four children of a Catalan doctor and his wife, a teacher, who had recently immigrated from Catalonia to San Ramón in west-central Costa Rica. His son José María Figueres was also President of Costa Rica from 1994 to 1998.įigueres was born on 25 September 1906 in San Ramón in Alajuela province. During his first term in office he abolished the country's army, nationalized its banking sector, and granted women and Afro-Costa Ricans the right to vote, as well as access to Costa Rican nationality to people of African descent. José María Hipólito Figueres Ferrer (25 September 1906 – 8 June 1990) served as President of Costa Rica on three occasions: 1948–1949, 1953–19–1974.
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