Lamanite Prophets & Traditions

The Book of Mormon was written for the Lamanites in our day and is a history of their people in the Heartland of North America.

Samuel Smith, brother of church prophet Joseph Smith and the first Mormon missionary, also tried to stir one prospective convert’s interest in the Book of Mormon by introducing it as “a history of the origin of the Indians.” In fact, the Book of Mormon, which rolled from the press of Egbert B. Grandin of Palmyra, New York, in late March 1830, was but one of many books purporting to reveal the true origin and history of the American Indians. Lucy [Mack] Smith, Biographical Sketches of Joseph Smith the Prophet, and His Progenitors for Many Generations (Liverpool, England, 1853), 152.

The statement below by Parley P. Pratt is a witness of the truth that the Lamanites of the Book of Mormon lived in this United States of America. The oral tradition of the Native Americans was a well preserved art in their culture.

“Once the red men were many; they occupied the country from sea to sea — from the rising to the setting sun; the whole land . . . Thousands of moons ago, when the red men’s forefathers dwelt in peace and possessed this whole land the Great Spirit talked with them, and revealed His law and His will and much knowledge to their wise men and prophets. This they wrote in a Book . . . written on plates of gold and handed down from father to son for many ages and generations. It was then that the people prospered and were strong and mighty; they cultivated the earth, built buildings and cities and abounded in all good things, as the pale faces now do . . . This Book, which contained these things was hid in the earth by Moroni, in a hill called by him Cumorah, which hill is now in the state of New York, near the village of Palmyra, in Ontario county . . . Thus ended our first Indian mission, in which we had preached the Gospel in its fullness and distributed the record of their forefathers among three viz.: the Cattaraugus Indians, near Buffalo, N.Y., the Wyandots, of Ohio and the Delawares, west of Missouri.” Autobiography of Parley P. Pratt, pp. 56-6; Documentary History of the Church Vol 1: Footnotes 183:2-18

The Cattaraugus and Wyandots are part of the Iroquois, Six Nations, or Haudenosaunee tribes of people. The Delaware are tribes from the Algonquian speaking nation of Indians. These wonderful Lamanites are the ones that the Lord spoke of in D&C 32:3 where he said, “I myself will go with them [Lamanites] and be in their midst; and I am their advocate with the Father, and nothing shall prevail against them.”

“The missionaries visited the Wyandots (Hurons Iroquois), the Delawares (Algonquian), the Catteraugus (Seneca Iroquois), and the Shawnees (Algonquian) during this first Lamanite mission. While we do not know for sure why these groups were chosen for proselyting, author and PhD Lori Taylor has noted that each of these Native nations claimed prophetic traditions. The Hurons spoke of Deganawidah, the Master of Things and the Peacemaker, a Huron prophet who taught the Iroquois Confederacy a new social order of cooperation. The Delawares followed Neolin, a prophet who encouraged his people to reject European ways in favor of the old ways, in order to gain favor with the Great Spirit. Neolin was associated with Pontiac and his war in 1763-1764.

The Iroquois believed in Handsome Lake, a prophet who received heavenly visitations in 1799-1800 from four visitors who encouraged him and his people to embrace traditional practices and to observe the ceremonial cycle. He encouraged his people to give up alcohol, witchcraft, and other vices. And lastly, the Shawnees followed Tenskwatawa, brother of the famous Tecumseh, who taught that the Shawnee needed to reject white ways in order to push back white settlement. Tenskwatawa learned from Handsome Lake and taught some things that appears to be influenced by Christianity. Although it is unclear how much the early Mormons knew about these prophets or the Native peoples who claimed them, Taylor’s speculation that the missionaries proselyted the Wyandots, Delawares, Catteraugus, and Shawnees for this reason remains intriguing. Equally fascinating is Taylor’s analysis of a story told by some contemporary Iroquois that JS knew about Handsome Lake’s teachings (who was active in western New York until his death in 1815) and that the Book of Mormon was shaped by Handsome Lake’s ideas.[7] Whether there is any truth to such accounts awaits further investigation by ethnohistorians, but one thing is certain, the Book of Mormon and early white Mormon interpretations of it had more in common with the apocalyptic visions of Neolin, Tenskwatawa, and other Native prophets than with the views of most other white Americans of the nineteenth century.” Early Mormon Lamanism, Forgotten Apocalyptic Visions, and the Indian Prophet By David G.June 14, 2010

“Oliver Cowdery wrote that the Ephraimites and the Lamanites were the “original settlers of this continent,” and that “an ancient prophet caused the plates from which the Book of Mormon was translated to be buried nearly two thousand years ago, in which is now called Ontario County, New York. In this same issue, W. W. Phelps wrote that it was “by that book [the Book of Mormon] I learned that the poor Indians of America were of the remnants of Israel.” Many other times editor Phelps identified the land of America as being the place where at least some Book of Mormon history took place, including the last battles of both the Jaredites and the Nephites.” (See Messenger and Advocate, vol. 2, October 1835, and the letter of W. W. Phelps to Oliver Cowdery in that same issue.) Oliver Cowdery Latter Day Saints’ Messenger and Advocate, July 1835, pp. 158-159

Indian Origins and the Book of Mormon by Dan Vogel

According to various accounts, some of the North American mounds also contained metal plates. Plates constructed by the Indians were usually made of hammered copper or silver and were sometimes etched. . . . In 1775 Indian trader James Adair described two brass plates and five copper plates found with the Tuccabatches Indians of North America. According to Adair, an Indian informant said “he was told by his forefathers that those plates were given to them by the man we call God; that there had been many more of other shapes, . . . some had writing upon them which were buried with particular men.” . . . Perhaps such discoveries of metal plates encouraged the persistent legend of a lost Indian book. The legend, as related by Congregational minister Ethan Smith [in his 1825 book, View of the Hebrews] of Poultney, Vermont, held that the Indians once had “a book which they had for a long time preserved. But having lost the knowledge of reading it, they concluded it would be of no further use to them; and they buried it with an Indian chief”

View of the Hebrews

Later that fall the Wayne Sentinel published another story about the Indian issue, printing a speech by Mordecai M. Noah, a prominent New York Jew who purchased Grand Island in the Niagara River and there dedicated the city of Ararat as a refuge for oppressed Jews around the world. In the dedicatory speech, Noah proclaimed that the Indians were “in all probability the descendants of the lost tribes of Israel.” Noah further remarked that the research of antiquarians showed the Indians to be “the lineal descendants of the Israelites,” and added, “My own researches go far to confirm me in the same belief.” He invited the Indians to join with their brother Jews on the Island. Using similar arguments, the following January the Susquehanna Register, a newspaper published in Pennsylvania not far from where Joseph Smith would later translate most of the Book of Mormon, reprinted the prospectus for a paper arguing that the Indians with few exceptions are “the literal descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.” Source: https://www.onenationonepower.com/forum/general-discussions/truth-indian-origins-and-the-book-of-mormon

Below is a list of some of the great Native American Prophets and the time and place they were born. Joseph Smith had many opportunities to visit with and listen to these great Native Prophets.

IROQUOIS INDIAN CHIEF	BORN	PLACE
DEGANAWIDA-Huron/ Onondaga/Mohawk	12th century	Near Lake Huron, NY
HIAWATHA- Onondaga/Mohawk	12th century	Onandaga, NY
TADODAHO- Onondaga	12th century	Onondaga, NY
JIGONHSASEE- Haudenosaunee	12th century	Cohoes Falls, NY
CANASATEGO- Onondaga	1684-1750	Onondaga, NY
SAYENQUERAGHTA- Seneca	1707-1786	Geneva, NY
GUYASUTA- Seneca	1725-1794	Conawagus, NY
SKENANDOA- Susquehannock/Oneida	1706-1816	Conestoga, PA
CORNPLANTER- Seneca	1732-1836	Canawaugus, NY
HANDSOME LAKE- Seneca	1735-1815	Conawagus, NY
GOVERNOR BLACKSNAKE – Seneca	1737-1860	Romulus, NY
RED JACKET- Seneca	1750-1830	Canoga, NY
JOHN BRANT- Mohawk	1794-1832	Brant, Ontario
JESSE CORNPLANTER- Seneca	1889-1957	Cattaraugus, NY

I believe the Iroquois and more specifically the Onondaga are the Native Americans of Joseph Smith. See my blog here. I believe the great prophet Onondagas as seen in vision by Joseph Smith was a great prophet over Zelph in one of the last battles between the Lamanites and Nephites. Read about Zelph and Onondagus in the Joseph Smith Papers here.

“Contrary, then, to widespread assumptions during Joseph Smith’s lifetime that the Onondaga migrated to the New York region, it becomes clear that they originated here as a small, narrowly localized amalgamation of a few villages near Onondaga Lake, during the century before Columbus’ discovery of America” Beauchamp’s Aboriginal Place Names of New York;

One of the most important non-LDS books which supports the Heartland Book of Mormon geography!  Old World Roots of the Cherokee: How DNA, Ancient Alphabets and Religion Explain the Origins of America’s Largest Indian Nation, by Dr. Donald N. Yates provides the most stunning new research validating the Heartland Model. The Cherokee who are part of the Iroquois Nation share DNA and cultural similarities with ancient Jewish populations. This blockbuster book is critical for the true “remnant” of the Book of Mormon.

Read my Blog titled, LAMANITE/IROQUOIS CONNECTION