Answering a Reader's Eastern U.S. Model - part X: Migrating Northward

Continuing with David McKane’s comments on our blog and his maps and claimed area for the Land of Promise in the Great Lakes area. Over the past few weeks McKane has tried to dominate our blog with his comments, most of which are both erroneous and clear misunderstandings of the scriptural record, and the events that have and are taking place in South America as well as in his model area of the United States. 
    One such comment is that “North America has horses and cattle South America nope.”
    Response: the fact of the matter is that horse remains and elephant remains have been found in South America as well as in the southwestern area of the United States—for a  background of this, see our article posted Thursday, December 20, 2012, “Another Look at Elephants in Ancient South America – Part II.

Left: Stone carving showing an elephant at the top, and (right), a metal engraving showing a llama and an elephant on the right side. Both were found in Ecuador and date to before the Spanish arrived.

    The trouble is, mainstream archaeologists and anthropologists ignore these findings because they do not fit into the mainstream established archaeological history. We have written many times about these artifacts that have been found.
    Another comment was made in response to one of our reader’s answering McKane’s comments about migration in which McKane said, “You still don't understand that the migration pattern in the Americas was from South to North.”
    There can be no question about this—all archaeologists working in the Americas, both north and south, have recorded such findings that South America shows a much older civilization than that of Mesoamerica and those lesser peoples of North America. Again, we have written about this many times in this blog.
    McKane answered this with: “Your argument is pointless the lamanites did not migrate north. The nephites migrated north until there were wiped out.”

Nephites immigrated into the Land Northward to “inherit the land”

    Response: Obviously, another case where McKane simply does not know the scriptural record he claims is the basis of his theory. In support of this immigration from the Land Southward into the Land Northward, both areas part of the Land of Promise, Mormon tells us that Nephite immigrants in 52 B.C. moved into the Land Northward to inherit the land, which was already part of the land promised to Lehi’s descendants: “And it came to pass in the forty and sixth, yea, there was much contention and many dissensions; in the which there were an exceedingly great many who departed out of the land of Zarahemla, and went forth unto the land northward to inherit the land. And they did travel to an exceedingly great distance, insomuch that they came to large bodies of water and many rivers. Yea, and even they did spread forth into all parts of the land, into whatever parts it had not been rendered desolate and without timber, because of the many inhabitants who had before inherited the land” (Helaman 3:3-5). This inheritance was definitely within the Land Northward as vs 6-9 so well shows.
    Now a little before this, Nephites took ships and traveled north, but not to inherit the land, but to imigrate to another land to the north. Mormon states this: “And it came to pass that Hagoth, he being an exceedingly curious man, therefore he went forth and built him an exceedingly large ship, on the borders of the land Bountiful, by the land Desolation, and launched it forth into the west sea, by the narrow neck which led into the land northward. And behold, there were many of the Nephites who did enter therein (53 B.C.) and did sail forth with much provisions, and also many women and children; and they took their course northward. And thus ended the thirty and seventh year” (Alma 63:5-6) The importance of this migration is seen in Mormon’s comment “And it came to pass that in the thirty and seventh [55 B.C.] year of the reign of the judges, there was a large company of men, even to the amount of five thousand and four hundred men, with their wives and their children, departed out of the land of Zarahemla into the land which was northward” (Alma 63:4).

These are two different migration patterns, though stated fairly close to the same time (two years apart), refer to two separate movements northward into two different lands. Mormon also says, after mentioning the last passages in Alma 63, that Nephites also traveled into the Land Northward within the Land of Promise in 53 B.C: “And it came to pass that in this year there were many people who went forth into the land northward” (Alma 63:9). This latter is also verified in the next verses: “And it came to pass in the thirty and ninth year (53 B.C.) of the reign of the judges, Shiblon died also, and Corianton had gone forth to the land northward in a ship, to carry forth provisions unto the people who had gone forth into that land” (Alma 63:10-11).
    Another movement of the people into the Land Northward of the Land of Promise is given in 46 B.C.): “And it came to pass in the forty and sixth, yea, there was much contention and many dissensions; in the which there were an exceedingly great many who departed out of the land of Zarahemla, and went forth unto the land northward to inherit the land” (Helaman 3:3). These three migrations into the Land Northward filled up the entire Land of Promise (Helaman 3:8), not just the Land Southward as previously had been done.
    All of this shows that the Nephites migrated north within the Land of Promise as well as taking ships to a land which was northward of the Land of Promise. Now, as the Nephites migrated northward, the Lamanites also migrated northward. At one time, they were only in the Land of First Inheritance (Alma 22:28), an area where Lehi first landed and where Nephi spent at least the first year, possibly part of a second, but eventually was told by the Lord not flee his brothers and the sons of Ishmael (2 Nephi 5:5).
    Whatever land they passed through in those “many days” of travel (2 Nephi 5:7), had been unoccupied, however, later, the Lamanites migrated into those lands and eventually found where the Nephites pitched their tents (2 Nephi 5:7), and settled—the area that then became the Land of Nephi (2 Nephi 5:8).
    Later, when the Lamanites attacked the Nephites around the Waters of Mormon (Mormon 1:10) in 322 A.D., the Lamanites drove the Nephites northward and “migrated” after them to fill up the rest of the Land Southward, which was made official by the treaty the two groups enacted 28 years lateri n 350 A.D. (Mormon 2:28).
    At this point in time, the Lamanites controlled the entire Land Southward, and the Nephites occupied the  Land Northward. Thus is cannot be said the Lamanites did not migrate northward—if they had not migrated northward, the Nephites would never had been forced out of the Land Southward and the final battle of annihilation would not have taken place.
    McKane: “The scriptures don't agree with you.”
    Response: On the contrary, they do as we have pointed out in the above quotes and those on the previous pages of this series in answering your many comments.
    McKane: “If you believe that there is a second hill cumorah in chile where lamanites wiped out the Nephites then the lamanites where not in New York State 4000 miles away.”
    Response: First of all, the distance is about 4,545 miles between the two locations of the hill Cumorah being suggested. But your point that mutually excludes one or the other where the Nephites were located is fallacious, and comes from this arrogant attitude many theorists have that the Land of Promise was only in the United States. The Land of Promise described in the scriptural record includes the entire Western Hemipshere, as a score of modern-day Prophets and General Authorities have so frequently stated, and of which we have written and posted their quotes many times on this blog.

As the map shows, the Nephites landed in Chile, and Nephi migrated northward into Peru, and finally into Ecuador. In 54 A.D. some Nephites and (converted) Lamanites went by ship into Central America and "were never heard from again," and then later migrated northward into Mexico and the United States—thus, Joseph Smith was correct in suggesting Zelph was a white Lamanite and that the prophet Onandagus was known from the Rocky Mountains to the eastern sea. It is not Rocket Science, just a simple understanding of the migratory route of the Nephites and the Lamanites, following the expansion northward into Central and North America, where remains and artifacts and legends have been found throughout and the Prophets and General Authorities have said of this area being the Land of Promise, and Zion—the area that Moroni said: “and that after the waters had receded from off the face of this land it became a choice land above all other lands, a chosen land of the Lord; wherefore the Lord would have that all men should serve him who dwell upon the face thereof. And that it was the place of the New Jerusalem, which should come down out of heaven, and the holy sanctuary of the Lord” (Ether 13:2-3).
(See the next post, ”Answering a Reader – Part X,” for more information on David Mckane’s model around the Great Lakes of his Land of Promise and our responses to his comments on our blog)