Juan Rafael Mora Porras

El Libertador Juan Rafael Mora Porras
Portrait by Aquiles Bigot
2nd President of Costa Rica
In office 26 November 1849 – 14 August 1859 Acting: 26 November – 30 December 1849
Vice President	Francisco María Oreamuno Bonilla Vicente Aguilar Cubero Rafael García-Escalante Nava
Preceded by	Miguel Mora Porras (acting)
Succeeded by	José María Montealegre
Vice President of Costa Rica
In office 26 November 1849 – 30 December 1849
President	Himself (acting)
Preceded by	Manuel Carazo Bonilla
Succeeded by	Francisco Oreamuno Bonilla
In office 16 November 1847 – 30 June 1848
President	José María Castro Madriz
Preceded by	José María Alfaro Zamora
Succeeded by	Manuel Carazo Bonilla
Additional positions
1846-1847	Member of the Constituent Assembly
1837	First Mayor of San José
Personal details
Born	(1814-02-08)8 February 1814 San José, Captaincy General of Guatemala, Spanish Empire
Died	30 September 1860(1860-09-30) (aged 46) Puntarenas, Costa Rica
Party	Independent
Spouse	Inés Aguilar Cueto ​ (m. 1847)​
Children	8
Relatives	José Joaquín Mora Porras (brother) Miguel Mora Porras (brother) Manuel Aguilar Chacón (father-in-law) José María Cañas (brother-in-law) José María Montealegre (brother-in-law) Juan Mora Fernández (second cousin) Manuel Argüello Mora (nephew)
Occupation	Merchant businessman politician farmer landowner
Signature

Juan Rafael Mora Porras (8 February 1814 – 30 September 1860) was a Costa Rican businessman and politician who served as the 2nd President of Costa Rica from 1849 to 1859. He is widely recognized for his leadership during the Filibuster War and for promoting economic development through the expansion of the coffee trade.^[1]

Mora first assumed the presidency upon the resignation of his younger brother, Miguel Mora Porras. He was subsequently elected in his own right in 1853, and he was reelected in 1859.

He (along with the rest of his administration) focused on modifying the Costa Rican constitution, with one of his modifications being an increase in the requirements to hold Costa Rican citizenship—including a high yearly income. He therefore left the majority of the population without the rights to vote and run for office (Conversely, the previous electoral system required citizens to be male, born in the country, and of age to have electoral rights).

As Mora's dramatic change to Costa Rica's constitution coincided with the privatization of the country's commons, its landless peasants were now left helpless. As Mora altogether deprived the commons-dependent peasants, they no longer possessed constitutional rights to political representation or constitutional means of achieving it.

In 1856, Mora led his country's forces in Central America's Filibuster War against William Walker and his filibuster regime in Nicaragua.^[2]

(For Costa Rican historiography, the war is divided into three parts: The First Campaign (March and April 1856), The Second (or Transit) Campaign (October 1856–May 1857), and The Third Campaign (August–December 1857).

Mora, along with Bishop Anselmo Llorente, gave a series of speeches to arouse the people and prepare them for the upcoming war. In his speeches, he emphasized the threat posed by the Protestant filibusters to the country's Catholic identity.

He then moved to his brother José Joaquín Mora Porras the supreme command of the army, and his brother led three battles during the First Campaign. Specifically, he charged José Joaquin to lead the Battles of Santa Rosa, Sardinal, and Rivas (a series of battles which managed to stop Walker's invasion to Guanacaste—at the time known as "Moracia" in the president's honour).

During the Rivas Battle, both the filibuster forces and Costa Rican forces contracted cholera. Costa Ricans subsequently found themselves under the impression that cholera was acquired on "ill-aired" locations, and they therefore fled from Rivas. As a result of taking the water-borne disease with them, they inadvertently caused a tenth of Costa Ricans to lose their lives in the 1856 cholera epidemic in Costa Rica.

For Costa Ricans, the war was then postponed until October 1856, the starting point for The Second Campaign.

Mora and his brother placed the emphasis of the Second Campaign on the Costa Rican armed forces cutting off Walker's supply route which used the San Juan River and the steamboats taken by the filibusters from the Accessory Transit Company.

There is, by contrast, no knowledge of what they did or what else happened during the Third Campaign.

There is still discussion on the intellectual authorship of the capture of the San Juan River. Some Costa Ricans, like historian Rafael Obregón Loría, claim it was Mora who planned the capture. However, Mora met in November 1856 with Silvanius Spencer, Cornelius Vanderbilt's agent, who offered his help on the capture of the San Juan River.

In spite of earning acclaim as a national hero for his efforts in that endeavor, he was overthrown in a coup d'état orchestrated by his opponent José María Montealegre in August 1859. He fled to El Salvador, where his supporters convinced him to launch an attack on Costa Rica and recoup the presidency. After initial victories, in which he succeeded in seizing the port of Puntarenas, he was defeated, captured, and, on September 30, 1860, brought before a firing squad.

His nephew, who he helped to raise, was the writer Manuel Argüello Mora. His great-great-grandniece is the actress Madeleine Stowe, who is also of a member Montealegre family.

His statue is erected in Ankara, Türkiye.