Margarito Bautista
Margarito Bautista was born on June 10, 1878. See ranking, bio blurb, and everyone else born that day.
About Margarito Bautista
Margarito Bautista (June 10, 1878 – August 4, 1961) was a Mexican evangelist and religious founder who wrote and preached for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church). After converting in 1901, Bautista preached for the church through word and writing for three decades and spent time in Mexico and Utah. During this time, Bautista developed a theology that fused Book of Mormon doctrine with Mexican nationalism, and he claimed Mexicans held a birthright to lead the church and someday the world. The church's Anglo-American leaders often considered Bautista's interpretations out of line with official doctrine, but they became very popular with Mexican Latter-day Saints. After Bautista helped lead a Mexican Latter-day Saint convention to protest the calling of an Anglo-American as a mission president in Mexico, the church excommunicated Bautista, and he went on to help lead the Third Convention breakaway movement. When Bautista pushed his interest in early Mormon religious practices such as the United Order and plural marriage, other leaders in the Third Convention expelled him from their movement. Though most of the Third Convention reconciled with and rejoined the church in 1946, Bautista abstained. Instead of rejoining the mainline church, in 1947 Bautista founded a colonia called Colonia Industrial de la Nueva Jerusalén, and he organized and led his own Mormon denomination in which he reintroduced the United Order and plural marriage. Bautista died in 1961, but his church and colonia survive to the present day.