And behold, it is wisdom that this land should be kept as yet from the knowledge of other nations; for behold, many nations would overrun the land, that there would be no place for an inheritance. Wherefore, I, Lehi, have obtained a promise, that inasmuch as those whom the Lord God shall bring out of the land of Jerusalem shall keep his commandments, they shall prosper upon the face of this land;
and they shall be kept from all other nations, that they may possess this land unto themselves. And if it so be that they shall keep his commandments they shall be blessed upon the face of this land, and there shall be none to molest them, nor to take away the land of their inheritance; and they shall dwell safely forever.
Let us have in our consciousness the Book of Mormon statement of origin. I say "statement of origin," because to those who accept the Book of Mormon as of divine origin, it gives more than a theory of origin—it tells of the origin of American peoples.
Previous to the departure of Jared's colony from the dispersion at Babel to the American continent as to a promised land—"a land choice above all other lands"—the Book of Mormon postulates those lands as uninhabited. It may be questioned if the command of the Lord to Jared's [p.117] colony to go into an uninhabited land—"yea, into that quarter where there never had man been"—had reference to their ultimate destination in the land of promise, the American continents, or to some land en route, into which they immediately passed. But let that be as it may, when the Jaredites came to America the Book of Mormon account of them assumes throughout that there were no other inhabitants in all that land. Throughout their long occupancy of the land—about sixteen hundred years from their arrival a few years after their departure from Babel to the coming of Lehi's colony, early in the sixth century B.C.—there is no mention or assumption of their coming in contact with any other people, or of their being any other people in all the land. They are sole possessors of it. Here they lived and developed their peculiar culture uninfluenced by contact with other people, either by reason of finding primitive inhabitants in the land, or by reason of infusion of other people among them. (B.H. Roberts, Studies of the Book of Mormon, p.116).
It may be remarked with reference to what is said of the unity of the American race, that unity of race holds, notwithstanding what may be claimed about the Book of Mormon representing that two races occupied America in ancient times, the Jaredites and the Nephites. The Jaredites do not count in matters of the American race, as Europeans came to know it, for the reason that the Jaredite race passed out of existence, was utterly annihilated about the time the Nephites and the people of Mulek reached the new world in the sixth century B.C. These colonies henceforth came to an empty America, as far as human inhabitants are concerned, and they and their descendants are the only ones that have to be considered in the race question; and as these colonies of Lehi and Mulek were Hebrew people, unity of the American race, so far as it relates to Book of Mormon peoples, as they became known to Europeans at the time of discovery, is obvious. (B.H. Roberts, Studies of the Book of Mormon, p.205).
Centuries ago the Lord designated America a goodly land, choice above all others, to be reserved for a righteous people. While it was yet unknown to Eurasians, He decreed that it should be discovered only under His guidance and promised its inhabitants from that time henceforth and forever that they should " . . . be free from bondage, and from captivity, and from all other nations under heaven," Ether 2:12) if they would serve him. On the other hand, he warned that if they would not serve him, "they should be brought down into captivity, and also into destruction both temporally and spiritually."
Preceding the advent of Columbus, two mighty peoples dwelling upon this land prospered in obeying God's commands and, rebelling against them, sank into oblivion. Their records are eloquent proof of the certainty in God's warning and promise. Marion G. Romney, Conference Report, April 1952, p.89
GREAT EVENTS.
IN the first thousand years, was witnessed the fall of man; the building up of Zion, when Enoch with all his people, walked with God three hundred and sixty five years on earth, and then were taken up into heaven.
In the second thousand years, the world was deluged with a flood for its wickedness; the tower was built that men might go to heaven; the language was confounded; the earth divided into continents and oceans; the people scattered upon the face of the whole earth; and America was peopled by the Jaredites.
In the third thousand years, Pharaoh and his host were swallowed up in the Red Sea; Israel, the chosen of the Lord, was overshadowed by his glory in a cloud by day, and a pillar of fire by night; and the building of the temple of the Lord at Jerusalem.
In the fourth thousand years, the ten tribes of Israel were led away captive out of the land of Canaan, and taken to a place by the hand of the Lord that has not yet been discovered by the Gentiles; the Jaredites were destroyed because of their wickedness; Lehi was guided by the matchless power of God to this continent.
In the fifth thousand years, the Savior of the world was born, crucified, and rose again from the dead; the most of the apostles were slain for preaching the gospel; and Jerusalem was destroyed.
In the sixth thousand years, America, the land of liberty, choice above all others, was settled by the Gentiles; the fulness of the gospel of Jesus Christ came forth in the Book of Mormon, the church established, and the gathering of the saints, commenced, preparatory to the second coming of their Lord, that in the seventh thousand years the earth may rest. The Evening and the Morning Star, Vol.2, No.13, p.102, June 1833.
But the most wonderful thing concerning the first colonization of this country after the flood was the way that they navigated the great Pacific ocean. Only think for a few moments of the Lord our God taking eight barges, launched on the eastern coast of China, and bringing them a voyage of three hundred and forty-four days and landing them all in the same neighborhood and vicinity and at the same time. This was a miracle. This was not done by the aid of steam, or by the navigator's art, but it was by the power of the Almighty God. He it was who controlled these vessels; He it was who governed the winds of heaven; He it was who brought them up out of the midst of the deep, when they were swallowed up, and He it was who guided them safely to this American shore.
They landed to the south of this, just below the Gulf of California, on our western coast. They inhabited North America, and spread forth on this Continent, and in the course of some sixteen hundred years' residence here, they became a mighty and powerful nation. Although they, became a great and mighty people, they were oftentimes very much chastened because of their sins. Here let me observe that before they arrived on this land the Lord said to them, "I design to lead you forth to a land that is choice above all other lands on the face of the whole earth; and this is my decree concerning the land which you are to occupy, that whatever nation shall possess the land from this time henceforth and forever shall serve me, the only true and living God, or they shall be swept off from the face thereof, when they are fully ripened in their iniquity." The Jaredites had this decree before them, before they set foot on this Continent. It was before them during the whole term of their existence here, that inasmuch as they would serve God they Would be prospered, and inasmuch as they would not serve Him great judgments were upon them. Hence they were afflicted oftentimes because of their wickedness. On a certain occasion there were a very few individuals, Omar and his family and some few of his friends, that were righteous enough to be spared out of a whole nation. The Lord warned them by a dream to depart from the land of Moran, and led them forth in an easterly direction beyond the hill Cumorah, down into the eastern countries upon the sea shore. By this means a few families were saved, while all the balance, consisting of millions of people, were overthrown because of their wickedness. But after they were destroyed the Omerites, who dwelt in the New England States, returned again and dwelt in the land of their fathers on the western coast.
I merely mention these things to show how the Lord operated among the first nations of the old inhabitants of this country, in order to fulfill His decrees. They could not fall into wickedness, and still be suffered to prosper on the face of this land. The decree had gone forth, it must be fulfilled. Finally, some sixteen or seventeen centuries after they landed here, they became so violently wicked, and transgressed the command, ments of the Lord to that degree that they were really swept off to a man. The whole nation perished. Their greatest and last struggles were in the State of New York, near where the plates from which the Book of Mormon was translated [p.342] were found. There they fought day after day; there they struggled, one party against the other until millions were swept off. Only one man survived his nation for very short space of time to see the fulfillment of a prophecy that was uttered by a great and mighty prophet that lived in those days, who stated that he should be permitted, after his nation was destroyed, to behold the colonization of the land by another people. This man, whose name was Coriantumr, King of a certain portion of the Jaredites, after the destruction of his nation, wandered, solitary and alone, down towards the Isthmus of Darien, and there he became acquainted with a colony of people brought from the land of Jerusalem, called the people of Zarahemla. He dwelt with them for the space of nine moons, and then he died.
After the destruction of the Jaredites, the Lord brought two other colonies to people this land. One colony landed a few hundred miles north of the Isthmus on the western coast; the other landed on the coast of Chili, upwards of two thousand miles south of them. The latter were called the Nephites and Lamanites. It was some four or five centuries after these two colonies came from Jerusalem and occupied the country before they amalgamated. A little over one century before Christ the Nephites united with the Zarahemlaites in the northern portions of South America, and were called Nephites and became a powerful nation. The country was called the land Bountiful, and included within the land of Zarahemla. But to go back to their early history. Shortly after the Nephite colony was brought by the power of God, and landed on the western coast of South America, in the country we call Chili, there was a great divison among them. The righteous were threatened by the wicked who sought to destroy them. The Lord warned Nephi, their leader, to flee from among the Lamanites, to depart for the safety of himself and his family and those that believed in the revelations of God. Nephi and the righteous separated themselves from the Lamanites and traveled about eighteen hundred miles north until they came to the head waters of what we term the Amazon river. There Nephi located his little colony in the country supposed to be Ecuador, a very high region, many large and elevated mountains being in that region.
Here the Nephites flourished for some length of time. The Lamanites followed them up and they had many wars and contentions, and finally the Lamanites succeeded in taking away their settlements, and the Nephites fled again some twenty days' journey to the northward and united themselves with the people of Zarahemla.
I mention these things in order to impress one particular item upon the minds of the Latter-day Saints concerning the inheritance or possession of this land. The Lord not only made decrees in the early ages with the first colonists that came here, but He renewed these decrees every time He brought a colony here, that the people should serve Him, or they should be cut off from His presence, and you will find that God, in every instance, has remembered these decrees. Orson Pratt, Journal of Discourses Vol. 12, p.342
God made America the richest of all lands. He filled its depths with precious minerals; he caused the most lovely trees, and herbs, and flowers to grow upon its surface. In all things he made it most desirable as a home for man. And here he planted the Garden of Eden, and placed our first parents, Adam and Eve, therein. From that garden they were afterwards driven forth when they failed to keep God's law. But they did not leave this continent. Here they still remained; here their sons and daughters were born, until many strong peoples had sprung from them. It was in this land that Cain slew his brother Abel; it was here that Enoch and his city dwelt, that Noah preached to the ungodly, and the ark was built. But when the flood was over and the waters sank, that ark, by the winds and waves, had been carried far away to a new land, until it rested on the Mountains of Ararat. Then for a short time America was without inhabitant.
But not long after the deluge the wicked tried to build a tower that would reach so high that if ever another flood came they might escape the rising waters by ascending it. This is called the Tower of Babel. The Lord was angry with those who attempted to build this tower, for he had promised that he would never again destroy the earth with the waters of a flood. But they did not believe him; and in their unbelief they went to work to construct it. In his anger he confounded their language, that they could not understand each other. Then he scattered them abroad upon the face of the earth. Some few, better than the others, be brought to America. Here he made them a great nation; and they filled the land for many hundreds of years. By and by they grew exceedingly wicked and gathered together in vast armies to war one with another. And they fought so terribly that at last they were all destroyed,--all except one man. These people were called the Jaredites.
By this we see that this continent was a second time left without inhabitants because of the great wickedness of the people.
After this the Lord brought another people to fill this land. They were a branch of the house of Israel, and we call them the Nephites and Lamanites. They also grew great, prospered, flourished, and fell. Like the Jaredites, at the last, they destroyed each other in war, and there were but few left. But from those few have come the many tribes of Indians that today are found scattered far and wide over both North and South America, and also on some of the outlying islands of the sea.
Thus fell a third race who would not serve God; for he had decreed that the wicked should not inherit this land. To one of his ancient servants he declared, "If iniquity shall abound cursed shall be the land for their sakes; but unto the righteous it shall be blessed for ever." (II. Nephi 1:7)
North America was the first of all lands to be inhabited; it was here that Adam and Eve dwelt. The Jaredites from the Tower of Babel also first landed here. But the Nephites made their earliest settlements on the western shores of the southern continent, where by degrees they spread north and south, then east and west, until their cities and villages could be seen in every part of the land.George Reynolds, The Story of the Book of Mormon, Introduction, p.16 - p.17
The brother of Jared was a mighty man of God; he found favor with the Almighty, and he and his brother and their colony crossed the great ocean and became the first known colonizers of this hemisphere; they settled the whole land of North America, and built it up with their cities, and became glorious, and were richly blessed of the Lord, until they departed from Him and became corrupt, when the sun of their civilization went down in a sea of blood. Orson F. Whitney, Collected Discourses Vol. 1, p. 360
Shortly after the deluge, too, we find that the Lord decided to confound the language of the people, in order that they might be scattered all over the face of the earth In this connection we read in the Book of Mormon about a man called Jared, but more particularly about one whose name is not given in the record, called the Brother of Jared -a man of mighty faith, who prayed to the Lord that the language of himself and his family might not be confused; and the Lord heard his prayer. And after the Lord granted him this first request, he prayed again that God would lead them to a land where he and his kindred and friends could dwell by themselves; and the Lord also granted this request, and led them to a land of promise, to a land which was "choice above all the lands of the earth." (Ether 1: 42.) That was the introduction of the Jaredites to America, and their history tells us that as long as they kept the commandments of God in this land, they were prospered exceedingly. Andrew Jensen, Conference Report, April 1908, p.48
For example, the Book of Mormon claims that ancient America was settled first by a group of colonizers called Jaredites, who came from the Tower of Babel. Milton R. Hunter, Conference Report, April 1970, p.100
THE BOOK OF ETHER.
THE Book of Mormon contains a short history of a race of people, which lived on this continent many generations before the children of Israel came to it. This brief account was written by a prophet of the Lord, named Ether; and his account, embracing a period from the confounding of the language at the building of Babel, to about 600 years before the birth of the Savior is supported by the Bible; for the Lord declares, that he scattered them abroad from thence, upon the face of all the earth. This nation, which, in honor of one of the first families that came over, were called Jaredites, must have had the unmolested control and use of America, near 1500 years. The Evening and the Morning Star, Vol.1, No.3, p.22
In this important and interesting book [The Book of Mormon] the history of ancient America is unfolded, from its first settlement by a colony that came from the tower of Babel, at the confusion of languages to the beginning of the fifth century of the Christian era. We are informed by these records that America in ancient times has been inhabited by two distinct races of people. The first were called Jaredites and came directly from the tower of Babel. The second race came directly from the city of Jerusalem, about six hundred years before Christ. They were principally Israelites, of the descendants of Joseph. The Jaredites were destroyed about the time that the Israelites came from Jerusalem, who succeeded them in the inheritanof the second race fell in battle towards the close of the fouth century. The remnant are the Indians that now inhabit this country. Joseph Smith, Letter to John Wentworth, Times and Seasons, Vol.3, No.9, p.708
21. The Archeology and Ethnology of the western continent contribute valuable corroborative evidence in support of the Book of Mormon. These sciences are confessedly unable to explain in any decisive manner the origin of the native American races; nevertheless, investigation in this field has yielded some results that are fairly definite, and with the most important of these the Book of Mormon account is in general accord. Among the most prominent [p.292] of the discoveries respecting the aboriginal inhabitants, are the following:—
I. That America was inhabited in very ancient times, probably soon after the building of the Tower of Babel.
II. That the continent has been successively occupied by different peoples, at least by two classes, or so-called "races" at widely separated periods.
III.
That the aboriginal inhabitants came from the east, probably from Asia, and that the later occupants, or those of the second period, were closely allied to, if not identical with, the Israelites.IV. That the existing native races of America have sprung from a common stock.
22. From the outline already given of the historical part of the Book of Mormon, it is seen that
each of these discoveries is fully attested by that record. Thus it is stated therein:—
I.
That America was settled by the Jaredites, who came direct from the scenes of Babel.
II. That the Jaredites occupied the land for about eighteen hundred and fifty years, during which time they spread over a great part of [North and South America; and that at about the time of their extinction (near 590 B. C.), Lehi and his company came to this continent where they developed into the segregated nations Nephites and Lamanites; the former becoming extinct near 385 A.D., about a thousand years after Lehi's arrival on these shores; the latter continuing in a degenerate condition until the present,
being represented by the Indian tribes of today.III. That Lehi, Ishmael, and Zoram, the progenitors of both Nephites and Lamanites, were undoubtedly Israelites, Lehi being of the tribe of Manasseh while Ishmael was an Ephraimite; and that the colony came direct from Jerusalem, in Asia.
IV.
That the existing Indian tribes are all direct [p.293] descendants of Lehi and his company, and that therefore they have sprung from men all of whom were of the house of Israel.
29. II. Concerning the Successive Occupation of America by Different Peoples in Ancient Times:—It has been declared by eminent students of American archeology, that two distinct classes, by some designated as separate races, of mankind inhabited this continent in early times: Prof. F. W. Putnamb is even more definite in his assertion that one of these ancient races spread from the north, the other from the south. This is in agreement with the Book of Mormon record, which describes the occupation of the continent by the Jaredites and the Nephites in turn, the former having established themselves first in North America, the latter in South America. H. C. Walsh, in an article entitled "Copan, a City of the Dead,"c gives many interesting details of excavation and other work prosecuted by Gordon under the auspices of the Peabody expedition; and adds, "All this points to successive periods of occupation, of which there are other evidences."James E. Talmage, The Articles of Faith, (Written by Appointment, published by the Church) p.292
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