Bautista Embraces Mormonism, 1901–1910

This chapter examines Margarito Bautista’s 1901 conversion to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Central Mexico and his subsequent residency in the polygamous Mormon Colonies in northern Mexico from 1903 to 1910. It argues that in the first decade after his conversion, Bautista’s mirroring of Euro-American Mormon missionaries transformed him into a potent, if unpaid evangelizer and impressed upon him the idea that the development of Mexico and Mexicans was a religious duty that required self-sacrifice, community building, and the strict observance of difficult practices, i.e. polygamy. After his conversion, Bautista quickly rose through the ranks of the Mormon priesthood and began evangelizing other Mexicans, first on Mexico’s Central Plateau and later in the state of Chihuahua, where he witnessed first-hand the Mormon practice of gathering into homogenous communities, the practice of polygamy, and the ability of Mormon colonists to tame the wilderness.

North of the U.S.-Mexico Border

This chapter examines Bautista’s U.S. residency (1910 to 1922) and its influence on his spiritual trajectory. It argues that during his first twelve years in the United States, Bautista experienced a decade of unprecedented personal growth and opportunity, which probably led him to expect a lifetime of increasing responsibility as a Mexican member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Bautista crossed the border a month before the Mexican Revolution began. He settled first in Mesa, Arizona, but moved to Utah in 1913 where he helped found the first Spanish-speaking branch of the Mormon Church in Salt Lake City. Though initially a gardener on Temple Square, Bautista became president of his congregation and the Lamanite Genealogical Society, mastered temple rituals and Mormon doctrine, published an article, and spoke to audiences about his experiences as a Mexican Mormon.

The Mormons in Mexico, 1875–1901

This chapter summarizes the origins of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Mexico, from the 1875 journey of the first missionaries to Mexico to the 1887 establishment of polygamous Mormon Colonies in the northern Mexican wilderness. The chapter argues that early converts to Mormonism in Mexico were attracted first to etiological narratives from Mormon scripture expounding on the chosen-ness of indigenous Americans and second to Mormon communalism. Early converts included Plotino Rhodakanaty, the father of Mexican anarchism, who sought to build a colony in collaboration with the Mormon Church. His aversion to hierarchical control soon separated him from Mormonism. Agrarian peasants from villages on Mexico’s Central Plateau found Mormon narratives regarding Mexico’s prophetic past and future compelling. In 1887, the Mormon Church turned its attention from proselytizing in order to build colonies in Mexico as safe havens for polygamists fleeing federal prosecution in the United States.

A Brief History of Indigenous Religious Authority in Mexico, 1519–1900

This brief history of indigenous spiritual authority in Mexico begins in 1513 with the arrival of the Spaniards and includes the argument that the conquest of Mexico resulted in the loss of indigenous spiritual authority through the defrocking of the Aztec priests and four centuries of indigenous exclusion from the Catholic clergy. The chapter contextualizes the search for indigenous identity and spiritual voice by recounting native responses to religious subjugation, including Indian rebellions, native prophets, bloody conflicts, and combinative religious practices through the nineteenth century. The arrival of Protestant and Mormon missionaries after the Civil War offered indigenous Mexican converts new avenues to ordination, education, and the development of leadership skills.

Bautista’s Repatriation to Mexico, 1935

Bautista repatriated to Mexico in 1935 where he hoped to participate in the political, cultural, and spiritual evolution of Mexico. The chapter argues that despite disappointments in Salt Lake City, Bautista found purpose as he proselytized Mexicans, gave readings of his tome, and won the admiration of Mexican Mormons. The chapter follows Bautista’s efforts to publish and market his magnum opus, La evolución de México, including his attendance at Mexico’s Second National Congress of History, where he hoped to connect with Mexicans shaping the nation’s future. Though this attempt failed, Bautista’s authorship afforded him celebrity among Mexican Mormons, who financed the publication of his book. This celebrity waned when Harold W. Pratt informed Mexican members that the The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints would not endorse Bautista’s book. The chapter also discusses Bautista’s covert wooing of young women he hoped to make polygamous wives.

Conflict with Euro-American Mormon Leadership, 1922–1935

This chapter discusses Margarito Bautista’s efforts as a missionary for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Mexico from 1922 to 1924, his preaching of unconventional doctrines while there, the fracas that ensued after his return to Salt Lake City over the lack of indigenous leadership in the Mexican Branch, and Bautista’s subsequently diminished influence in the Mormon Church. It argues that Bautista’s meteoric rise through the ranks of Mormon leadership came to a halt as he became increasingly insistent that Mexicans should govern their own congregations. Bautista’s name disappeared from the records of the Mexican Branch at about the same time the company that had employed him prior to his mission went bankrupt. During this period, his nationalism grew as he read about the Cristero Rebellion in Mexico. By 1930, without influence in the Church and unemployed, Bautista took up his pen and began to write.

Creating Utopia

This chapter follows the history of Bautista’s polygamous utopia, Colonia Industrial/Nueva Jerusalén, from the purchase of property in 1942 to Bautista’s death in 1961. The chapter argues that after his excommunication from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormon Church) and his expulsion from the Third Convention in 1937, Bautista’s vision of Mexican chosen-ness accompanied by the responsibility he felt to prepare Mexicans for their millennial duties, catapulted him into the role of a utopian founder. The colony’s establishment involved backbreaking labor and years of austere living. Bautista enforced rules to regulate communalism and to govern the acquisition and behavior of wives, often very young girls. The chapter includes a discussion of Bautista’s theological pillars: polygamy, communalism, and indigenous priesthood. He continued to send missionaries from his colony to proselytize, and he continued to publish tracts and pamphlets he authored until two years before his death in 1961.

Epilogue

Bautista’s life provides a Mormon chapter to the history of conflict over leadership between Euro-American missionary movements and their indigenous converts. Insistence on indigenous ecclesiastical authority and the practice of polygamy cost Bautista his membership in the Mormon Church and nearly every personal relationship. Nevertheless, Bautista never bowed to the pressure of Euro-American religious authority. His contributions include: congregation building in Central Mexico, the Mormon Colonies, Arizona, and Salt Lake City; teaching genealogical research methods to Mexicans from 1922 to 1924; his leadership role in the schismatic movement known as the Third Convention (1936); his authorship of the largest indigenous Mormon theological work to date; his decades of diaries; and the nearly seventy-year survival of his utopian community. His continuing relevance is underscored by the fact that increasing conversions among Latin Americans points to an indigenous majority in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in the near future.

The Third Convention, April 21, 1936

This chapter discusses Bautista’s 1936 involvement in the Third Convention, a grassroots movement of Mexican Mormons who petitioned the First Presidency of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints for the appointment of an ethnically Mexican mission president. The author argues that Bautista fomented the rebellion in association with Mexican Mormons who had served as Zapatista soldiers in the Mexican Revolution and whose ideology had been influenced by agrarian anarchism, nationalism, and indigeneity. The chapter follows the formation of the Third Convention, the efforts of the mainstream Church to halt the movement, the excommunication of Conventionist leaders, and Bautista’s expulsion from the Third Convention when his pursuit of polygamous wives became known. By 1937 Bautista had lost his friends and his spiritual community. His lack of community catapulted him into a new religious role, that of religious entrepreneur. Bautista began to proselytize his own independent following.

Bautista’s Magnum Opus

Bautista’s magnum opus, a 564-page tome melding Aztec history with Mormon scripture, was published in 1936 in Mexico City; he titled the work La evolución de México: sus verdaderos progenitores y su origen: el destino de America y Europa (The Evolution of Mexico: Its True Progenitors and Its Origin, the Destiny of America and Europe). The chapter argues that Bautista intended to introduce Mexicans on a national level to Book of Mormon narratives that explain centuries of Mexican oppression, reimagine Mexicans as an exceptional race, and prophesy the recovery of sovereignty for indigenous Americans. The first major indigenous hermeneutic of Mormon scripture, La evolución promises divine retribution to colonizers and assures Mexicans that God waits for them to assume global leadership, to build the New Jerusalem, and to usher in Christ’s millennial reign. La evolución offers a “prophetic program” for Mexico’s political and spiritual redemption: obey God and prosper.