Bruce R. McConkie has said: "When Columbus discovered America, the native inhabitants, the American Indians as they were soon to be designated, were a people of mixed blood and origin. Chiefly, they were Lamanites, the great majority are the descendants of the original inhabitants of the Western Hemisphere, the dominant blood lineage is that of Israel."
Aposlte Orson Pratt said, "Here we present a record of this American continent, a history of a branch of the tribe of Joseph…a history of the Lord's dealings with them from the time they left Jerusalem until one of their principal nations fell in battle, because of their apostasy; and the descendants of the remaining remnant are this degenerated people we call Indians, who still exist…which afterwards became a "multitude of nations," according to the blessing pronounced by the ancient patriarch Jacob, when blessing his two grandsons, Ephraim and Manasseh…these Indian tribes..are the blood of Israel.”
Apostle Hyrum G. Smith added in a 1929 Conference, “the blood of Manasseh is found in the tribes and nations of the Indians of North and South America." Apostle George Q. Cannon wrote: “Here stretches out before us this immense continent on the south, peopled with descendants of the house of Israel.”President Spencer W. Kimball said, "Here he [God] has the Indian or Lamanite, with a background of twenty-five centuries of superstition, degradation, idolatry, and indolence...They may be Navajos or Cherokees.... Mayas or Pimas.... Piutes or Mohicans.... And in these living descendants ... will be redeemed, will rise and will become a blessed people. God has said it."
Apostle Delbert L. Stapely added, “In a sense I do not feel sorry for the Indian people because they are children of promise, belonging as they do to the house of Israel and are the posterity of Abraham, the father of the faithful, through whose lineage the Lord promised that all nations of the earth are to be blessed; therefore, they are a chosen race and people unto God, possessing a divine and royal heritage."
Apostle Gordon M. Romney in a 1957 Conference said, "Guatemala is a country of about three million people. About half of them still dress in the Indian costume of a thousand or two thousand years back. I went to present them with a Book of Mormon. I started to say, "I come to give you a copy of the Book of Mormon, a history of your people," and two chiefs immediately arose on their feet, and said, "We are of the House of Israel."
Elder Milton R. Hunter of the Seventy has written, "Following the discovery of America, the Quiches vigorously opposed marrying Spanish conquistadors and members of successive groups of European colonists. They have held tenaciously to a traditional custom practiced by the ancient Israelites and brought to America by the Nephites who I believe were among their forebears.”
Joseph Smith said in 1844 to a band of Sac and Fox Indians that came and camped out in Nauvoo complaining "they had been robbed of their lands by whites and cruelly treated." Joseph Smith's response was: “I knew they had been wronged, but that we had bought this land and paid our money for it. I advised them not to sell any more land, but to cultivate peace with the different tribes and with all men, as the Great Spirit wanted them to be united and to live in peace. 'The Great Spirit has enabled me to find a book which told me about your fathers, and the Great Spirit told me, 'You must send to all the tribes you can, and tell them to live in peace;' and when any of our people come to see you, I want you to treat them as we treat you.'"
Not until the revelations of Joseph Smith, bringing forth the Book of Mormon, did any one know of these ancient migrants who came to the Americas. It was not known before, but now the question is fully answered. Now the Lamanites number about sixty million; they are in all of the states of America from Tierra del Fuego all the way up to Point Barrows, and they are in nearly all the islands of the sea from Hawaii south to southern New Zealand. The Church is deeply interested in all Lamanites because of these revelations and because of the Book of Mormon giving their history that was written on plates of ore and deposited in the hill. The translation by the Prophet Joseph Smith revealed a running history for one thousand years—six hundred years before Christ until four hundred after Christ—a history of these great people who occupied this land for that thousand years. Then for the next fourteen hundred years, they lost much of their high culture. The descendants of this mighty people were called Indians by Columbus in 1492 when he found them here, but they truly were the Lamanites of the Book of Mormon according to Spencer W. Kimball in the July 1971 issue of the Ensign: "Of Royal Blood.”
They came from Jerusalem with Father Lehi and have lived on the American continents ever since—descendants of the House of Israel that spread out over all the Western Hemisphere.
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