HARRY TRUMAN LIBRARY Papers of NATHANIEL DAVIS Despatch no. 159, April 22, 1949, American Embassy, San José, Costa Rica UNCLASSIFIED Page Rican bank of the San Juan River. Only three villages of Cuatuso Indians remain. Halaria, tuberculosis, abject poverty, and hopelessness are rapidly reducing the Indian population which today numbers less than two hundred souls. oncountered only one genuinely Costa Rican family which for reasons unexplained had emigrated from the Central plateau. They looked healthy and peened quite happy with a 11fe of subsistance faring plus a small cash inoone from two or three aeres of cacao.
It was noteworthy that Indiana and white Costa Ricans both disliked and feared their Nicaraluan neighbors, taking a dateatist attitude towards the infiltration of squatters from across the San Juan. Even the Costa Rican officials with whom talked at Guatuso and Loo Chillea merely shrugged their shoulders when asked about the MNIGRB.
What little retail trade exista appears to be in the hands of Costa Ricans, whereas on the Nicaraguan side of the border, Chinode merchants predominate. The cacao buyers who traverse the region by cance are partly Nicaraguan and partly Costa Rican. In their complaints of exploitation and chating the Indians did not differentiate between the two nationalities.
respectfully yours, Nathaniel Davis Enclosuresi Extracts from Diary Photographs Hle no. 123. Davis NPDavis:mjP UNCLASSIFIED