One of the 1st cities to be founded in Costa Rica's Central Valley was Ciudad de Garcimuñoz in March, 1561. A year later when the Spanish Crown appointed a new governor, Juan Vásquez de Coronado, he moved the city to El Guarco and renamed it Nueva Cartago (New Carthage.)
During the colonial period in Costa Rica poverty ruled. The indigenous settlements in the Central Valley were decimated by the conquistadors and their illnesses; those few that survived fled to the mountains to avoid Spanish slavery.