During his term as governor, Cárdenas sought to bring peace to the state, unite its population divided by the on-going Cristero War, and make Michoacan, especially the historic town of Pátzcuaro into a tourist destination. Once he was president of Mexico, he continued to devote government funding to the project. Cárdenas built a house in Pátzcuaro when he became governor of the state, naming it "La Quinta Eréndira," after the Purépecha princess, who has been identified as Mexico's first anticolonial heroine for her resistance to the Spanish conquest, and a contrasting figure to Malinche, Cortés's cultural translator. Eréndira became a popular historical figure under Cárdenas. At his estate, he commissioned murals for the house, which are now lost, but it is known from historical sources that they had indigenous themes, particularly the rise and fall of the Purépecha Empire at the time of the Spanish conquest. The murals and the texts "appropriate national historical narratives in order to supplant the national myths and locate Mexico's ideal foundations in Michoacan."