Backwater Bureaucrat to Revolutionary Myth-Maker: Bernardo M. de Leon, Caciquismo, and Memory in Nayarit, 1920-1990

This article examines two episodes in the career of Bernardo M. de Leon, an agrarian reform leader and federal congressman from the state of Nayarit. During the first period, from 1920 to 1940, De Leon emerged as a local cacique responsible for both progressive politics and repressive maneuvers, particularly during the 1930s land reform effort undertaken by the administration of Lazar Cardenas. During the second period, from 1970 to 1990, he functioned largely as a political elder in Nayarit. In that capacity, he promoted the official history of the Revolution, at the same time that he manipulated collective memories of his own revolutionary participation. In doing so, he helped to define how successive generations of Mexicans remembered their Revolution and his role within it. Even after his death in 1991, the legacy of De Leon informed civic engagement in Nayarit, as various groups, ranging from ejido-seeking peasants to local political functionaries, invoked his memory in pursuit of their own political objectives.