# Nicarao Arrive in Gran Nicoya (c. 1200)

URL: https://allhistories.com/costa-rica/timeline/1200-nicarao-arrive-in-gran-nicoya
Location: Rivas, Nicaragua
Themes: main-event

The Nicarao were a branch of the Nahua peoples, closely related to the Pipil of El Salvador, who over several centuries from about AD 700 moved south from Mexico into Central America. They spoke Nawat, a language related to the Nahuatl of the Aztecs. Around AD 1200, according to most estimates, a group of Pipil who would become the Nicarao migrated further south into Gran Nicoya. According to their own tradition, they were seeking a lake with two volcanoes rising from the water, which they found in Lake Nicaragua and Ometepe. They seized many of the fertile lands of the Rivas isthmus and Pacific Nicaragua, displacing or subjugating Chorotegas and Chibchan-speaking groups. A Nicarao enclave was also established near Bagaces in Guanacaste, where it came into conflict with the Huetar. The Nicarao monopolised the cultivation of cacao, whose beans served across Gran Nicoya as currency: Spanish sources record prices in cacao beans for food, slaves and services. When the Spaniards arrived in the 1520s, Nicarao chiefdoms dominated western Nicaragua; the name of the chief Nicarao, or the people, is the origin of the name Nicaragua. Their presence also left Nahua place names in Guanacaste. At this point in the timeline (c. AD 1200), no individual ruler of the territory of present-day Costa Rica is recorded in this dataset; the land was divided among chiefdoms (cacicazgos) of Chibchan-speaking peoples and, in Gran Nicoya, Chorotega and Nicarao communities.

## Why it matters
The Nicarao migration completed the Mesoamerican settlement of Gran Nicoya and introduced cacao money to the region.

## Sources
- [Wikipedia — Nicarao people](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicarao_people)
- [Wikipedia — Nawat language](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nawat_language)
- [Wikipedia — Cocoa bean](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cocoa_bean)
- [Wikipedia (es) — Nicarao](https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicarao)
- [Wikipedia — Pre-Columbian Costa Rica (period overview)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Costa_Rica)