Jesus Malverde was of Yoreme and Spanish heritage. He is a "Robin Hood " figure who was supposed to have stolen from the rich to give to the poor. He is celebrated as a folk saint by some in Mexico and the United States, particularly among drug traffickers. Historically, the existence of Malverde is not verified so we dwell into the world of other Patron Saints.
Heraclio Bernal
During the pre-Revolutionary period (1870-1910) while Porfirio Diaz was in power, the corrido was much less abundant than it would be in latter years. With national affairs controlled by the central government and a long period of peace, the corridista had little to work with. However, as soon as caudillos (military leaders), bandidos (bandits) and the pueblo began to take arms in revolutionary bands, the corrido had a new purpose. During this time period, some of Mexico's most important national figures like Francisco Madero, Venustiano Carranza, Emiliano Zapata, Pancho Villa, and Alvaro Obregon were swept from their high positions by rebellion and political assassination. As such, these figures often met with violent deaths giving the corridista subjects that were not only historical but dramatic. Through the tales that the corridista spun, these men became not only famous but legendary. Today we still hear these corridos in cantinas and plazas throughout Mexico and parts of the United States.
Most interesting are the corridos of the bandidos who were often striking personalities. These bandidos were usually close to the pueblo and often acted as modern day "Robin Hoods". Heraclio Bernal was a typical "Robin Hood" character, taking from the mines and the government and giving to the pueblo which included laid off mine workers. Although most of the corridos about Heraclio Bernal celebrate him as a larger than life character, it is important to remember that he was a real man....a very couragous and brave man.
Heraclio Bernal was born in 1855 in El Chaco in the municipality of San Ignacio, Sinaloa as the fourth child of a poor family. Bernal's first run-in with the law came in the town of Guadalupe de los Reyes where he worked in the local mine. Here he was wrongly accused (according to some) of stealing bars of iron and arrested. Although he was able to get away, he was later apprehended in a small town nearby. Bernal was sent to Mazatlan where he spent the rest of the year (1877) in jail.
Map of Sinaloa and environs
From 1879-1880 Bernal was involved with the uprising of General Jesus Ramirez Terron in Mazatlan and the southern part of Sinaloa against Porfirio Diaz. Bernal was given the rank of lieutenant but soon returned to attacking mines, businesses and government offices in the region of Guadalupe de los Reyes. For the most part, Bernal and his bandidos were interested in arms and ammunition. However, when they did seize money on a raid, Bernal was quick to share it with his comrades. Most of Bernal's bandidos were mine workers from the Sierra Madre Occidental of the states of Durango and Sinaloa. Over the years, historians have disagreed on how many men Bernal had with estimates ranging from 10 to 200. In any case, during this time, Bernal and his band were headquartered in the remote area of El Maguey in the municipality of Durango surrounded by inaccessible mountains.
Later in 1879, Bernal would help the rebellion of Jesus Ramires Terron once again. Terron had just launched the Plan de Copala which denounced the government of Porfirio Diaz and demanded a strict interpretation of the constitution of 1857. From 1880 on, Bernal took the city of Mazatlan and extended his raids from Nayarit to the Tarahumara mountain range. He continued to attack mines and other government offices as he controlled nearly the entire line of the Sierra Madre Occidental.
In 1885, Bernal signed and published the Plan en la Rastra that denounced the president of the republic and the local authorities of Sinaloa. However, it was in 1886 that Bernal gained national fame. During a presidential address, Porfirio Diaz mentioned the fight that his government was engaged in with Bernal and in 1887, a bounty of 10,000 pesos was placed on his head.. There are a number of versions as to the death of Bernal. One version states that he was hiding in a cave dying of illness with his friend Crispín García standing guard. According to this version, after Bernal had died of his illness, García shot him in the head several times so he could collect the bounty. However, according to Nicole Giron, Bernal was surrounded in the mountains near the mines of Nuestra Senora Sinola and was killed on the fifth day of January in 1888 (Avitia Hernández 309). No matter how Heraclio Bernal died, the fact is that his name lives on. Many versions of the corrido of Bernal's death still exist today as a tribute to the Rey de Sinaloa.
Credits: Jaime
Felipe Bachomo
Felipe Bachomo was born in 1883 in Jahuara; an indigenous neighborhood of Mochicahui on the banks of the Fuerte River in northern Sinaloa. From a very young age; Without knowing how to read or write, he was employed as a laborer in the hacienda of the rich landowner Don José María Cásarez, where it is said he fell in love with one of the boss's daughters named Elvira.
On May 1, 1911, Bachomo, in the company of other Mayo Indians, armed with bows and arrows and an old pistol or carbine, left Jahuara to join Ibarra's forces with whom they participated in military actions in Sinaloa until the triumph of the Maderista revolution with the taking of Mazatlan, thus ending the military campaign.
Once the military campaign was over, the soldiers were “licensed”, that is, to give them the freedom to return to work on their land. But the Mayo Indians knew that they had no land to work, so they returned to Mochicahui but in order to start their own struggle under the leadership of Bachomo, with their own flag and objectives: to recover the dispossessed lands.
Bachomo thus became an independent force in the Fuerte River basin, establishing its headquarters in Jahuara, commanding nearly 6,000 men with military supplies that it had accumulated during the Maderista campaign, as well as bows and arrows that they themselves had made. He didn't know anything about politics and he didn't support Carranza or Huerta, even, he had his own fight and that was to fight against the local caciques.
The caciques of the region reacted harshly to the Indians, carrying out a massacre in Ahome, taking those who remained alive prisoner. Maytorena encouraged Bachomo to stop the arbitrariness, and on April 18, 1914, he took the town to heart and blood, freeing the detainees and ordering the looting of the shops and houses of the "yoris", so called white people.
General Felipe Rivera; Chief of the Carrancista forces in Sinaloa, in recognition of his courage he extended the appointment of General, but Bachomo maintained his independence, his cause was not that of Carranza and his revolution was limited to persecuting and punishing the caciques executioners of his race. His was not a caste war, as evidenced by the fact that his second in command; Jesús Ruiz was a yori (white), in addition to the fact that many mestizos such as Lorenzo Robles were among his forces. In fact, one of his lieutenants; Armando Borboa, was a target of criminal and cruel instincts, who was the real author of the looting, fires and rapes, which Bachomo was later accused of in the process that followed to shoot him.
Credits: Héctor Lizarraga
