The Struggle: Gadianton Robbers-Native Americans

As an overriding theme we have examined in class is that stories(religious texts) of hardship struggle and death can be related to real life stories and happenings of the same subject matter. The Book of Mormon is no exception.

The experiences of those in the Third Nephi and those who lived in America in the 18^th and 19^th centuries could definitely be related as there are quite a few similarities. Specifically, I came to the conclusion that the threat and problem of the”Gadianton robbers” was quite similar to that of the Native Americans in the 18^th and 19^th centuries.

 During this time period, the Native Americans were being pushed off their native lands, challenged for hunting grounds, and heavily discriminated against. As a result, they took to violence as a response to these conditions and exerted a tremendous amount of terror and hardship on the settlers. Similarly in the Nephi account, the Lamphites and Nephites, “were compelled, for the safety of their lives and their women and their children, to take up arms against those Gadianton robbers, yea, and also to maintain their rights, and the privileges of their church and of their worship, and their freedom and their liberty”.

As things escalated, a war started between the two groups. Similar to how the settlers pushed the native Americans from their land and into more remote areas , the Lamphites and Nephites did the same,” the people of Nephi did gain some advantage of the robbers, insomuch that they did drive them back out of their lands into the mountains and into their secret places”. Because of the increasing amount of people, and the increased need for food, the American settlers settlers basically wiped out the food source in the homelands of the native Americans.  The Nephites did the same,” But behold, there were no wild beasts nor game in those lands which had been deserted by the Nephites, and there was no game for the robbers save it were in the wilderness”.

Eventually, just as the settlers did, the Nephites defeat the Gadianton robbers. Praising the lord for his support in their struggle ,” May the Lord preserve his people in righteousness and in holiness of heart, that they may cause to be felled to the earth all who shall seek to slay them because of power and secret combinations, even as this man hath been felled to the earth”. To conclude, although there are quite a few viable ways to link the Book of Nephi and the lives of the American settlers, I found that the concepts of their struggle with the Gadianton Robbers really stood out and reminded me of the settlers’ early struggles with the Native Americans.