José de la Ascensión Esquivel Ibarra (10 May 1844 – 15 April 1923) was a Costa Rican jurist, diplomat and politician who served as the 17th President of Costa Rica from 1902 to 1906. He had previously served as Secretary of Foreign Affairs from 1885 to 1886 and again from 1887 to 1888.
Born in Nicaragua, Esquivel immigrated to Costa Rica during childhood and became a naturalized Costa Rican citizen in 1869. He was the first foreign-born individual to be elected to the presidency, in 1902. After leaving office, he remained active in public service and later served as President of the Supreme Court from 1917 to 1920 during the Tinoco dictatorship and the subsequent provisional government.
Early life and career
José de la Ascensión Esquivel Ibarra was born on 10 May 1844 in Los Cerros, Rivas, Nicaragua, to José María Esquivel and Antonia Ibarra, both Nicaraguan citizens. He was given the name Ascensión because he was born on the Catholic feast of the Ascension of Jesus.
In 1854, at the age of ten, he moved with his father to neighboring Costa Rica, where they settled in Liberia, Guanacaste. There, his father began working on the San Jerónimo hacienda, while Esquivel began his primary education at a school founded by the future priest Carlos María Ulloa Pérez. At the age of fifteen, Esquivel received his first public appointment in 1859, serving as a messenger at the government headquarters in Heredia, where his father had been named constitutional mayor. During this period, his father formally acknowledged him through a legal declaration of paternity.
In 1861, the Guanacastecan lawyer Antonio Álvarez invited Esquivel to travel with him to San José so that he could continue his studies. Esquivel and his father accepted the offer, and Álvarez took him into his household while also securing him a position as a court clerk at the Supreme Court of Justice. Within a few months, he moved to a rented room supported by his salary. Shortly after his nineteenth birthday, his father submitted a joint naturalization petition for both of them in May 1863. After meeting the legal requirements and presenting testimony from Costa Rican citizens attesting to their residence in the country since 1854, both were granted Costa Rican citizenship in June of that year.