Saints and Indians in Frontier America
“At length, on the 2nd day of July, 1843, President Joseph Smith and several of the Twelve met those chiefs in the court-room, with about twenty of the elders. The following is a synopsis of the conversation which took place as given by the interpreter:—
The Indian orator arose and asked the Prophet if the men who were present were all his friends. Answer—”Yes.”
He then said—”We as a people have long been distressed and oppressed. We have been driven from our lands many times. We have been wasted away by wars, until there are but few of us left. The white man has hated us and shed our blood, until it has appeared as though there would soon be no Indians left. We have talked with the Great Spirit, and the Great Spirit has talked with us. We have asked the Great Spirit to save us and let us live; and the Great Spirit has told us that he had raised up a great Prophet, chief, and friend, who would do us great good and tell us what to do; and the Great Spirit has told us that you are the man (pointing to the Prophet Joseph). We have now come a great way to see you, and hear your words, and to have you to tell us what to do. Our horses have become poor traveling, and we are hungry. We will now wait and hear your word.”
The Spirit of God rested upon the Lamanites, especially the orator. Joseph was much affected and shed tears. He arose and said unto them: “I have heard your words. They are true. The Great Spirit has told you the truth. I am your friend and brother, and I wish to do you good. Your fathers were once a great people. They worshiped the Great Spirit. The Great Spirit did them good. He was their friend; but they left the Great Spirit, and would not hear his words or keep them. The Great Spirit left them, and they began to kill one another, and they have been poor and afflicted until now.
The Great Spirit has given me a book, and told me that you will soon be blessed again. The Great Spirit will soon begin to talk with you and your children. This is the book which your fathers made. I wrote upon it (showing them the Book of Mormon). This tells what you will have to do. I now want you to begin to pray to the Great Spirit. want you to make peace with one another, and do not kill any more Indians: it is not good. Do not kill white men; it is not good; but ask the Great Spirit for what you want, and it will not be long before the Great Spirit will bless you, and you will cultivate the earth and build good houses like white men. We will give you something to eat and to take home with you.”
When the Prophet’s words were interpreted to the chiefs, they all said it was good. The chief asked, “How many moons would it be before the Great Spirit would bless them?” He [Joseph] told them, Not a great many.
At the close of the interview, Joseph had an ox killed for them, and they were furnished with some more horses, and they went home satisfied and contented.”
BYU Studies Quarterly, Volume 5 Chapter 25 page 481
“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
Who and Where Are the Lamanites?
By Lane Johnson Assistant Editor
To produce a map that shows where the Lamanites of the world are located today, the mapmaker must first decide exactly what a Lamanite is. This turns out to be no small task, because the term Lamanite is used in several different senses in the scriptures to describe a particular racial lineage, a political/religious group, a covenant people, etc. However, the Old and New Testaments and the Book of Mormon, viewed together in one limited sense as a partial record of the peopling of the earth, provide a useful context in which to view this problem.
The history of the peopling of the earth is really a history of the scattering of the descendants of Noah, who is sometimes referred to as the “second father of mankind.” [President Lorenzo Snow reported that on one occasion Joseph Smith was once asked who he was: “The Prophet smiled kindly upon his interlocutor and replied, “Noah came before the flood; I have come before the fire.” Abraham H. Cannon Journal]
This general scattering began soon after the Flood when the sons of Noah and their children began to spread forth “in their lands, … after their nations” (see Gen. 10:5, 20, 31) and was greatly accelerated at the time of the Tower of Babel, when the Lord confounded the people’s language and did “scatter them abroad upon the face of all the earth.” (Gen. 11:9.)
Immediately after the description of Babel in Genesis 11, the Old Testament record moves quickly to Abraham, a descendant of Shem, and ceases thereafter to be a record of all the descendants of Noah; instead, it focuses almost entirely on the Lord’s covenant people, presumably a relatively small part of the earth’s total population at that time. We know very little about the remainder of Noah’s seed, except that in time they wandered throughout the extent of the land to become the heathen nations of the earth.
The nations of the earth had been dispersing from the Tower of Babel for 1,500 years when the Ten Tribes of Israel were carried captive into Assyria. Shortly thereafter, Judah was taken into exile by Nebuchadnezzar, and although one group was permitted to return to rebuild Jerusalem, the bulk of the kingdom of Judah remained in Babylon to be eventually dispersed. Then, in A.D. 70, the remainder of the Jews were driven from the promised land by the Romans to complete the scattering of Israel.
What we see in this brief account is a picture of the general dissemination of the descendants of Noah throughout the world, beginning at the time of the Flood, with other groups—remnants of Israel—breaking away at intervals to follow the earlier migrants to the various corners of the earth and establish themselves among them as strangers, though distantly related.
Within this broad picture we find the people of the Book of Mormon, which is a partial record of some of those who were, at various times, led out of the Old World by the Lord to become established in the American continents: the Jaredites, who were led away at the time of the Tower of Babel and were, therefore, a part of the earliest dissemination of the descendants of Noah; the Lehi colony, led out of Jerusalem during the reign of Zedekiah, just prior to the captivity of Judah by Nebuchadnezzar; and the colony of Mulek, the youngest son of Zedekiah, who departed Jerusalem eleven years after Lehi.
The term Lamanite was first applied to the literal family of Laman, Lehi’s eldest son. This name very soon took on a broader application, however, when Laman, Lemuel, and some of the sons of Ishmael rebelled against and sought to kill Nephi, in whom the Lord had vested his authority. At that time the Lord cut them off from his presence and caused a darker skin coloring to come upon them. (See 2 Ne. 5:19–21.) Thereafter the name Lamanite referred to a religious/political faction whose distinguishing feature was its opposition to the church. (See Jacob 1:13–14.) Lineage became an increasingly minor factor, and later there are many examples of Lamanites becoming Nephites and Nephites becoming Lamanites.
For nearly 200 years after the coming of Christ to the Americas, there were no Lamanites “nor any manner of -ites; but they were in one, the children of Christ, and heirs to the kingdom of God.” (4 Ne. 1:17.) Soon, however, a part of the people fell away and took upon them the name of Lamanites; “therefore there began to be Lamanites again in the land.” (4 Ne. 1:20.) Clearly, Lamanite in this case again refers to the state of righteousness of a political/religious group, presumably a composite of the descendants of many of the original colonists in the New World. The Lamanites of this definition survived beyond the close of the Book of Mormon record, and it is these people from whom the Lamanites of today descended. That is to say, they are the descendants of Lehi, Ishmael, and Zoram (see D&C 3:17–18); they are the descendants of Mulek and the others of his colony (see Hel. 6:10; Omni 1:14, 15); and they may also be descended from other groups of whom we have no record. Certainly they have mixed with many other lineages at the far reaches of their dispersal in the Americas and most of the islands of the Pacific since the time when Moroni bade them farewell in A.D. 421.
In this composite group is the blood of Israel, for we know that Lehi was of the tribe of Manasseh (see Alma 10:3), that Ishmael was of Ephraim (see JD 3:184), and that Mulek was of Judah, being a descendant of King David through Zedekiah. Therefore, the Lamanites of today—all the mixed descendants of the Book of Mormon peoples—have a legitimate claim to the blessings of the Abrahamic covenant and, in turn, the duty to now carry these blessings to those nations of the earth who yet remain in darkness, the remainder of the descendants of Noah.”
Saints and Indians in Frontier America
Click the link above for a great resource on the Joseph Smith Papers website for wonderful information about the Native Americans.
Mesoamerican Theory Opinion below:
Lamanites And DNA Studies: From “Who are the Descendants of the Lamanites?”By Book of Mormon Central · November 25, 2018
In recent years, genetic evidence uncovered from DNA testing has revealed that Native Americans carry primarily Asian DNA. This has caused many to wonder how modern Native Americans could possibly be descendants of Lehi. Critics of the Book of Mormon have even used this evidence to argue for the book’s fraudulence. In 2014, the Church released an official statement on this subject which, while affirming Book of Mormon historicity, acknowledged the current state of the evidence, warned of the gaps in our knowledge, and urged for a nuanced approach in discussing Lamanite identity.
This understanding is reflected in the updated introduction to the Church’s official edition of the Book of Mormon:
As both the old and the new introductions to the Book of Mormon indicate, and as scholars have pointed out, Lehi could well be a common (but not sole) ancestor shared by most if not all modern Native Americans even if we cannot detect his DNA signature in his modern descendants because of complicating factors.” Source” Meridian Magazine and Book of Mormon Central.
Heartland Editor’s notes:
You as the reader are invited to believe the theory of your choice. When it comes to Book of Mormon Geography the Church is officially neutral. That doesn’t mean you have to be. We want you to be informed and that is why I suggest you read the Mesoamerican theory above from Book of Mormon Central, about who are the Lamanites in their opinion. In my opinion the events of the Book of Mormon began in Florida area and went up into the Heartland of North America.
Since the Mayans and others of the Western United States, Mexico, Central and South America have been found to have Asian blood, this makes it unlikely that these Lamanites are the original Lamanites of the Book of Mormon. DNA evidence has been found to show Israelite blood in many Native American Indian Tribes near the Great Lakes in the USA. [Article Here: also see Annotated Book of Mormon index under Lamanites]. It makes sense to consider these Native Americans Indians with Hebrew DNA markers, more likely to be the original Lamanites than those from South or Central America that only show Asian blood.
We believe there are wonderful Lamanites in both North and South America through much co-mingling which makes sense. However we believe the main events of the Book of Mormon happened in the Heartland of North America and the Lamanite blood spread out from there. See the article below about the Hinterlands. Those of the Mesoamerican persuasion believe the main events of the Book of Mormon happened near Guatemala and those of North America would be called the Hinterlands. We report so you can decide as our friend Wayne May says.
See blogs below Supporting the Heartland Model:
Assigned Readings From Joseph Smith Papers
- Ronald W. Walker, “Seeking the ‘Remnant’: The Native American during the Joseph Smith Period,” Journal of Mormon History 19, no. 1 (1993), pp. 1–8, 22–33.
- Glossary entries on Joseph Smith Papers website for “Lamanites” and “Gentiles.” These definitions provide a brief overview of early Latter-day Saint conceptions of American Indians as descendants of Book of Mormon Lamanites and how that relates to the unique conception of “Gentiles” in the early church.
- Title Page of the Book of Mormon, 1830 edition. The title page of this first edition of the Book of Mormon explains that the text was directed specifically to America’s indigenous inhabitants.
- Letter from Oliver Cowdery, 8 April 1831. Cowdery describes difficulties missionaries encountered trying to get permission from the United States to preach to Indians on the frontier.
- Letter from Oliver Cowdery, 7 May 1831. Cowdery offers an update on the progress of the Lamanite mission.
- Letter to Noah Saxton, 4 January 1833. Joseph Smith describes Indians as covenant Israel and states that the American continents are their promised land, which Gentiles can join if they accept the gospel. Begin with the second paragraph, “The Book of Mormon is a reccord.”
- Autobiography of Parley P. Pratt (1888), pp. 26–27. Pratt explains how in 1826, before joining the church, he sought to embark on a mission to “the red man.” The passage illustrates that, in some cases, converts brought prior interests in Native Americans to their activity in the new church.
- “O stop and tell me, Red Man,” from 1835 Collection of Sacred Hymns. A hymn by prominent church member William W. Phelps, expressing some early Latter-day Saint sentiments towards American Indians.
