The Descendants of the Lamanites

One of the questions about the Book of Mormon is where it took place.  There are generally two different sides: one suggests that it took place in Central America (with Guatemala as the center), and the other argues that it took place in what is now the heartland of the Unites States.  I certainly don’t claim to know the answer, and I doubt we will ever know in this life for sure since the scriptures simply don’t tell us.  But the scriptures do give us some clues about where the descendants of the Lamanites ended up, and I think the evidence actually supports both of the theories. 

                The Book of Mormon itself talks at length about the descendants of the Lamanites in Nephi’s vision in 1 Nephi 13.  He witnessed the apostasy of the Nephites, the degradation of the Lamanites, and then the arrival of the Europeans in the Americas.  He recorded, “And I looked and beheld a man among the Gentiles, who was separated from the seed of my brethren by the many waters; and I beheld the Spirit of God, that it came down and wrought upon the man; and he went forth upon the many waters, even unto the seed of my brethren, who were in the promised land” (1 Nephi 13:12).  This prophecy refers to Columbus according to President Benson.  So Nephi saw that Columbus went across the waters unto the seed of his brethren.  So where did Columbus land?  A quick look at Wikipedia shows his visits included the Bahamas, Cuba, Haiti, Puerto Rico, Dominican Republic, Trinidad, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, and Panama.  So among those islands and Central America countries were, according to Nephi, descendants of the Lamanites.  It doesn’t necessarily mean that this is where those Lamanites had lived for the more than 1000 years since the Book of Mormon times, but their ancestors at least included the Book of Mormon peoples. 

There is scriptural evidence as well, though, that the North American Indians were likewise descendants of the Lamanites.  In Nephi’s vision he also wrote about the Gentiles who were in the colonies that became the Unites States: “And it came to pass that I beheld many multitudes of the Gentiles upon the land of promise; and I beheld the wrath of God, that it was upon the seed of my brethren; and they were scattered before the Gentiles and were smitten….  And it came to pass that I, Nephi, beheld that the Gentiles who had gone forth out of captivity did humble themselves before the Lord; and the power of the Lord was with them.  And I beheld that their mother Gentiles were gathered together upon the waters, and upon the land also, to battle against them” (1 Nephi 13:14-17).   Verse 14 tells us that these Gentiles scattered the descendants of the Lamanites, and from verse 17 it seems pretty clear that these Gentiles were those in the areas that would become the United States.  The scattering that they did were of Native Americans in the eastern United States, giving evidence that the descendants of the Book of Mormon peoples were also living there in the 1700s.  The Doctrine and Covenants also confirms that the Native Americans were descendants of the Lamanites.   The Lord told Newel Knight, “You shall take your journey into the regions westward, unto the land of Missouri, unto the borders of the Lamanites” (D&C 54:8).  The Lord here was designating the American Indians near Missouri as being “Lamanites,” a designation that He also gave in D&C 28:8-14 and D&C 32:2.  

In my view I don’t think any of this tells us where the Book of Mormon took place, but I think it does give us evidence that the seed of the Book of Mormon people were well scattered by the time that Europeans came, living from Central America to the eastern United States.  This also doesn’t make any claims about the Lamanites and Nephites being the only ancestors of the native population, but only that they were among them.  Surely there was much travel and mixing of civilizations in the hundreds of years between Moroni and Columbus.  What’s most important is what 1 Nephi 13 and these passages were trying to say: that the descendants of the Book of Mormon people would receive the gospel in the latter days and would “blossom as the rose” (D&C 49:24).