The next important event affecting the movement of population and the possession of the land north and south was a war between the Nephites and Lamanites, that began with the invasion of Nephite lands by the Lamanites in 35 B. C. Owing to dissensions among the Nephites, many of that people had deserted to the Lamanites. It is quite possible that this was owing to the resentment felt by the dissenting Nephites because of the class distinctions which arose on account of wealth and pride; and instead of the dissatisfied joining in the movement northward, as many did, some of them went southward, joined their fortunes with the barbarous Lamanites, and fomented the spirit of war against their brethren. In this war the Nephites were destined to meet with a new experience. Hitherto in their wars with the Lamanites, since uniting with the people of Zarahemla, at least, the Nephites had been able to hold their lands against the Lamanite invasion; and though they had lost here and there a battle, they were uniformly successful in their wars. In the war of 35-32 B. C., however, the Lamanites drove the Nephites from all their lands in the south continent. Even Zarahemla was taken, and the cities in the land Bountiful, extending, be it remembered, northward from the land of Zarahemla to the isthmus connecting the two continents. The Nephites were thrown wholly on the defensive. They concentrated their forces at the narrow neck of land; hastily fortified it, and by that means prevented the invasion of the north continent.[[17]]

In the year 32-31 B. C. the fortunes of war changed somewhat, and the invading hosts of Lamanites were forced out of the most northern cities of the Nephites in the land Bountiful and Zarahemla; but the city Zarahemla, so long the capital of the Nephite-Zarahemla nation, remained in possession of the Lamanites; nor could the Nephites further prevail by force of arms than to win back and hold about one-half of their possessions in the south. At this point still another event, important in Nephite history, occurred. The Chief Judge of the land, whose name was Nephi, resigned his office in order to join his younger brother, Lehi, in the work of preaching the gospel. Unrighteousness is assigned as the cause of Nephite failure in the war of 35-32 B. C.; wealth, love of luxury, pride, injustice to the poor, internal dissensions, manifold treasons, and civil strife are enumerated as among Nephite sins and afflictions. If unrighteousness was the cause of Nephite weakness and failure—and it was—then clearly the logical thing to do was to bring the people to repentance, re-establish them in righteousness, and by these steps restore them to the favor of God. Evidently so reasoned these two priests and prophets of God, Nephi and Lehi; and to the achievement of this end they bent their energies. They were successful; but successful in a direction least to be expected, viz, successful in converting the Lamanites. Partially successful in converting the Nephites, in the northern cities of the southland, they went into the land of Zarahemla, still held by the Lamanites, and so far convinced the Lamanites of the error and wickedness of the traditions of their fathers that eight thousand were baptized in the land of Zarahemla and the regions round about. Thence the two prophets went further southward into the land of Nephi; and though they met with some persecutions, such was the marvelous display of God's power in their deliverance, that the greater part of the Lamanites were converted; and restored to the Nephites the cities and lands they had taken in the recent war. Many of the Lamanites themselves engaged in the work of the ministry, and preached to the Nephites both in Zarahemla and in the north continent. Nephi and Lehi also preached in the northland, but with no great success. Still peace prevailed; and for the first time since the separation of the Nephites from the Lamanites, in the first half of the sixth century B. C., there was unrestricted intercourse between the two peoples:

And behold, there was peace in all the land, insomuch that the Nephites did go into whatsoever part of the land they would, whether among the Nephites or the Lamanites. And it came to pass that the Lamanites did also go whithersoever they would, whether it were among the Lamanites or among the Nephites; and thus they did have free intercourse one with another, to buy and to sell, and to get gain, according to their desire. And it came to pass that they became exceeding rich, both the Lamanites and the Nephites; and they did have an exceeding plenty of gold, and of silver, and of all manner of precious metals, both in the land south and in the land north. Now the land south was called Lehi, and the land north was called Mulek, which was after the son of Zedekiah; for the Lord did bring Mulek into the land north, and Lehi into the land south. And behold, there was all manner of gold in both these lands, and of silver, and of precious ore of every kind; and there were also curious workmen, who did work all kinds of ore and did refine it; and thus they did become rich. They did raise grain in abundance, both in the north and in the south; and they did flourish exceedingly, both in the north and in the south. And they did multiply and wax exceedingly strong in the land. And they did raise many flocks and herds, yea, many fatlings. Behold their women did toil and spin, and did make all manner of cloth, of fine-twined linen and cloth of every kind, to clothe their nakedness.

The next event which affected Nephite occupancy of the land north and south was one of their many robber wars. By the sixteenth year from the time the sign[[18]] of the birth of Christ[[19]] had been given (therefore 16 A.D.) wickedness had so far increased among the people of the western world, and there had been so many dissensions from those who once had favored law and order, that the robber bands which infested the country considered themselves so powerful that they called upon the Chief Judge of the land to abdicate government and accept the order of things that obtained in their societies. This demand led to a serious war between the supporters of the government on the one hand, and the outlaws on the other. The Nephite leaders gathered their people both from the north and the south into the central part of their country—into the land Bountiful, and the land Zarahemla; and the cities of these lands the Nephites and the Lamanites standing for law, order, and the maintenance of government, fortified and stocked with an abundance of provisions against the opening of the impending war. The war began in the year 18 A. D., and lasted for more than two years. In it the robber bands were not only defeated, but annihilated, by being destroyed in battle, executed under the provisions of the law, or by being compelled to enter into covenant to abandon their robberies and murders. This war, in some respects the most terrible in Nephite history, was followed by an era of prosperity. In the course of a few years the Nephites had moved back upon their lands whence they had been called by the exigencies of the recent war. "And it came to pass that there were many cities built anew, and there were many old cities repaired. And there were many highways cast up, and many roads made, which led from city to city, and from land to land."[[20]]

No sooner were the terrors of war removed, however, than the people who had been so marvelously delivered from their enemies lapsed again into unrighteousness.

For there were many merchants in the land, and also many lawyers, and many officers. And the people began to be distinguished by ranks, according to their riches and their chances for learning; yea, some were ignorant because of their poverty, and others did receive great learning because of their riches. Some were lifted up in pride, and others were exceedingly humble; some did return railing for railing, while others would receive railing and persecution, and all manner of afflictions, and would not turn and revile again, but were humble and penitent before God. And thus there became a great inequality in all the land, insomuch that the church began to be broken up; yea, insomuch that in the thirtieth year the church was broken up in all the land save it were among a few of the Lamanites who were converted unto the true faith; and they would not depart from it, for they were firm, and steadfast, and immovable, willing with all diligence to keep the commandments of the Lord. Now the cause of this iniquity of the people was this, Satan had great power, unto the stirring up of the people to do all manner of iniquity, and to the puffing them up with pride, tempting them to seek for power, and authority, and riches, and the vain things of the world. * * * * Now they did not sin ignorantly, for they knew the will of God concerning them, for it had been taught unto them; therefore they did wilfully rebel against God.[[21]]

The people of the western world, in brief, had entered upon that final stage of their wickedness which was to terminate in those awful convulsions of nature that should make their lands desolate, and well-nigh destroy the inhabitants thereof. The government itself had become corrupt; so, too, had the priesthood, save a few faithful ones—men of God, who testified that the Messiah had come, and that the time of his passion and resurrection approached. These were secretly haled before the judges, and both priests and lawyers leagued against them for their destruction. When it was feared that the Chief Judge would not sign their death warrants—a thing needful under the Nephite law to make executions legal—they privily put them to death, and thus were guilty of judicial murders. An attempt to overthrow the commonwealth, now perpetuated through more than a hundred and twenty years, ended in anarchy; and thence to the establishment of a sort of tribal government, which maintained an uncertain peace by means of mutual fears rather than by any inherent strength in the system—if system, indeed, it could be called. Such were the conditions that obtained among the people of the western world when those mighty cataclysms occurred which destroyed so many Nephite cities, effaced so much of Nephite civilization, and so greatly changed in some places the physical character of the continents of the western hemisphere, of which the Book of Mormon account has been already given.

Shortly after these great cataclysms the Savior made his appearance among the Nephites and established his Church, which event was followed by a long period of righteousness and the loss of all race and party distinctions, such as "Nephite" and "Lamanite," etc.; and the people occupied the lands north and south without restraint according to their good pleasure. True, in the year 350, A. D., when wickedness had again made its appearance among the people, and old distinctions were received, a treaty was made in which it was stipulated that those calling themselves Lamanites and Gadianton robbers would possess the south land. The treaty, however, was not long respected by the Lamanities, for at the end of ten years they violated it by attempting to invade the north and war was renewed. Back and forth surged the tide of armed conflict, but raged chiefly in what was known to the Nephites as the land of Desolation, the old seat of Jaredite empire and civilization. The Nephites at last having been driven from their southern strongholds in the north continent, proposed through their leader, Mormon, Mormon,[[22]] that they be permitted to gather their people at Cumorah—the Ramah of the Jaredites—that they might trust their fate to the dreadful arbitrament of one great conflict. The request was granted; the hosts were gathered, the armies which fought under the Nephite name were destroyed, save such as were mingled with the Lamanites. Anarchy followed, and then savagery for ages claimed the western hemisphere as its own.

Footnotes

[1]. See Ether 7:6 and Dict. B. of M., Art. Desolation.