The 30º South Latitude—Bay of Coquimbo, Chile

Repeatedly, we find that those early apostles who were close to Joseph Smith all speak of the Lehi Colony landing at the 30º South Latitude in South America.

Within this area called South America today the land that is now Venezuela was discovered by Christopher Columbus in 1498, and later named Venezuela (Little Venice) by Amerigo Vespucci in 1499. In 1542, all of Spanish controlled South America was formed as the Viceroyalty of Peru, with its capital in Lima. Because of difficulty in communication over such a large area, in May of 1717, the area of New Granada (Viceroyalty of New Granada) was established as the New Kingdom of Granada, which included all the Spanish jurisdiction in northern South America (Colombia, Ecuador, Venezuela, Guyana, northwestern Brazil, northern Peru, Costa Rica and Nicaragua. In 1739, Panama was added to this Viceroyalty).

In 1776, the Viceroyalty of the Rio de la Plata (present day Argentina, Bolivia, Paraguay and Uruguay), was established, taking land and control out of the Viceroyalty of Peru. In 1811, Venezuela declared its independence. After the defeat of the Spanish by Simon Bolivar and his armies in 1819, Venezuela, along with Colombia, Ecuador, and Panama, formed the independent Republic of Gran Colombia..

In 1818, Chile was liberated from Spanish rule, and in 1821, Peruvian independence was officially declared, All of Ecuador (the Republic of the Equator) gained its independence in 1822, following Guayaquil’s independence in 1820, when Antonio Jose de Sucre defeated the Spanish Royalist forces at the Battle of Pichincha near Quito. In 1830, Venezuela emerged from that coalition to become an independent nation.

While we think of South America as individual countries today, in 600 BC., the area along the western strip, usually referred to as the Andean area, was one continuous, unbroken wilderness (uninhabited), with tall cliffs along the Pacific shore with only a few areas suitable for landing a group of people from a deep-sea, ocean-going vessel. That area is today called the Bay of Coquimbo, which is situated exactly along the 30º south latitude, in what is today the country of Chile. Several things work for this area being the landing site of the Lehi Colony:

1) The winds and currents, which move swiftly across the Southern Ocean from the Indian Ocean to the Western Hemisphere, dies down within the Tropic of Capricorn, making landfall a simple matter. It should be kept in mind, that in 600 B.C. and for nearly two thousand years afterward, making landfall on a shoreline was no simple matter. Many shores were cliffs, not suitable for landing or moving inland. The Bay of Coquimbo is one of those very few areas along the west coast of South America where a landing could have easily been achieved.

2) The 30º south latitude encompasses one of the five Mediterranean climates in the entire world, with the only other one in the Western Hemisphere along the San Diego are of Southern California. A Mediterranean Climate would have been essential and absolutely necessary to plant and grow crops abundantly from seeds from Jerusalem (one of the other areas with a Mediterranean Climate).

3) Two unknown animals perfectly matching the description of Cumom and Curelom (Ether 9:19) are indigenous to this area—the Llama and Alpaca. No other animals that would have been unknown to Joseph Smith in 1830 match such description were or are found anywhere else in the Western Hemisphere.

3) Two unknown grains match the description of neas and sheum (Mosiah 9:9) and are indigenous to this area—quinoa and kiwichi, both supergrains that were unknown to Joseph Smith in 1830, and found nowhere else in the world.

4) A natural, herbal cure for fever (Alma 46:40) is indigenous in this area and unknown anywhere else in the world until the 16th-century A.D. This is quinine made from the bark of the cinchona tree and, until transplanted into Indonesia in the 18th and 19th centuries and synthesized in the 20th century, found nowhere else.

5) “And we did find all manner of ore, both of gold, and of silver, and of copper” (1 Nephi 18:25). Gold, silver and copper within a single ore is found in abundance in this area and very little anywhere else in the Western Hemisphere.

There are many other points, as illustrated in the book: “Lehi Never Saw Mesoamerica,” but this should be sufficient to suggest the landing site of the Lehi Colony, and why Joseph told his associates that is where Lehi landed.