Cosmopolitan Native? Guillermo Gabb and the Talmancan Indians in Costa Rica, 1890s–1910s

In line with the prevailing idea that Costa Rica’s population was white and of European descent, the country’s traditional historiography either ignored indigenous populations or portrayed them as primitive, marginal, and isolated. Recent studies are increasingly showing that these views were wrong. In line with this scholarship, I examine the figure of Guillermo Gabb, an Indian from the southeastern region of Talamanca whose life challenges common assumptions, not only about indigenous isolation and backwardness, but also about nation-building and supranational connections.

The figure of Guillermo Gabb encompasses qualities usually considered incompatible: indianness, national belonging, and cosmopolitan ties. Born of an indigenous mother, he remained firmly rooted in Talamanca’s indigenous world during his entire life. But this did not prevent him from building strong connections at the national level, as he rubbed shoulders with important Costa Rican politicians, attended school in the capital city, learned how to read and write in Spanish, and participated regularly in national elections. Gabb also sported deep international ties, collaborating with foreign scholars and missionaries, cultivating close relations with foreign traders settled in Talamanca, and learning English. That is, Gabb was far from the uneducated primitive stuck in a pre-Columbian lifestyle that has been commonly associated with Indians in Costa Rica and beyond.

Was Gabb exceptional and unique, or were there more Indians that, like him, proved to be more “cosmopolitan” and “modern” than historians have believed? Moreover, what does his case tell us about the opportunities and obstacles that Indians across Latin America faced?