Moses Thatcher, an apostle of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, stated in 1880 that the mother of Rhodakanaty had been born in Mexico.
[4] While in Paris, he learned of Mexico's rural system, consisting of relatively self-governing agricultural communities, and of the threat being posed to the people by capitalism and privatization.
[2] Rhodakanaty arrived in Mexico in 1861, and within the year he published La Cartilla Socialista and began propagating the ideas of contemporary European thinkers, particularly those of Fourier, Proudhon, and Bakunin.
[4] La Cartilla Socialista lays out Fourier's program for agrarian socialism, and begins by asking: "What is the most elevated and reasonable goal that human intelligence can be devoted to?
[6] It was the first revolt in Mexico which called for the overthrow of the government, in favor of locally-controlled land redistribution and a decentralized system of autonomous villages with a common defense force based on libertarian principles.
[7] A circle of followers emerged among his pupils, including Santiago Villanueva, Francisco Zalacosta, Julio Chávez López, and José María Gonzales.
[8] As religious curiosity began to grow among intellectuals in Mexico City, Rhodakanaty first turned his attention to the Protestants, who sold their goods in order to make them available to the church and distribute them as an example of the spread of the Gospel.
[9] In addition to the values advocated by the LDS Church, he was also attracted to their communitarian practices at the time, which included communal property and an emphasis on self-reliance.
[11] Rhodakanaty was baptized into The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints—along with eight others—on November 20, 1879, and shortly after was ordained an elder and appointed to lead the local congregation.
[11] He disapproved of the violence in Mexico associated with the insurrections, but believed that the church would surely institute their proposed United Order there, which would essentially follow his plan to turn the country into a utopian society.