Answering a Heartland Theorist’s Erroneous Claims – Part III

Continuing with more of this reader’s comments and our responses regarding his disagreement with our article on the events surrounding what Joseph Smith did and did not testify about. The reader’s comments are in italics following (•), and our response is in regular type:
•“Joseph signed the statement and told the Rochester Observer paper to print his statement in its entirety as it comes as a commandment from God.”
Response: Joseph did not conclude his letter in this manner. In fact, there is no such wordage in the letter. The word “print” only appears once and used in the context that God “would write his laws in their heart and print them in their thoughts.” Nor is there such a comment in Joseph’s second letter to N.C. Saxton dated February 12, 1833. The wordage “commandment of God,” does appear in the second letter (the word command, commanded, or commandment appears only this once), when Joseph opened it with “I was somewhat disappointed on receiving my paper with only a part of my letter inserted in it. The letter which I wrote you for publication I wrote by the commandment of God, and I am quite anxious to have it all laid before the public for it is of importance to them.”
•“3 times in the D&C the Lord commands Joseph to send missionaries unto the Lamanites, he did and sent them to: New York, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois and Missouri, never sending a single missionary to Central or South America”
Response: First of all, we should keep in mind that because of the Indian Removal Act passed in May 1830, signed  by President Andrew Jackson, who wanted to move all Indian tribes east of the Mississippi River to the west of the Mississippi and into the present day Kansas and Oklahoma—these included the “Five Civilized Tribes,” The Chciasaw (5,000), Choctaw (19,500), Creek (22,700), Seminole (5,000) and Cherokee (21,500), including the tribe’s black slaves numbering 4,656. Also, in a revelation given before the Book of Mormon was completely translated, the Lord said that the plates were preserved “that the Lamanites might come to the knowledge of their Fathers and that they may know the Promises of the Lord that they may believe the Gospel and rely upon the merits of Jesus Christ.” As the principal scribe of the Book of Mormon, Oliver Cowdery knew that the book was written primarily “to the Laminates,” who were “a remnant of the house of Israel.” It was appropriate, then, that in September 1830, six months after the Book of Mormon was published, Oliver Cowdery was the first person instructed by revelation to “go unto the Lamanites and Preach my Gospel unto them.”

Early missionaries went on foot throughout their missions, and initially, Joseph Smith sent missionaries to the Indians surrounding the Church’s locations, both in New York and west into the Indian lands

Thus, Oliver and other missionaries to the Lamanites planned to go west from Independence, Missouri, into Indian Territory—a very short distance compared to foreign missions. Beginning in New York, they preached to the Seneca nation near Buffalo, but the success of their mission was not with the Lamanites, since they did not go directly to the Lamanites, but stopped along the way to preach in Ohio, and in so doing converted Sidney Rigdon and a large number of people in Kirtland, Ohio (which would prove significant later on); the Shakers in Ohio, and others in Illinois. Then, while Peter Whitmer, Jr., and Ziba Peterson remained in Independence to earn money, Oliver, Parley P. Pratt, and Frederick G. Williams went over into Indian Territory, which bordered Missouri at the time, preaching to the Shawnees and Delaware.

The Delaware were very receptive and invited Oliver and Williams back the next day to read form the Book of their ancestors

However, despite the receptiveness of the Delaware, the Indian agents expelled the missionaries and the government would not allow them to proselytize in Indian Territory (Leland H. Gentry, “Light on the ‘Mission to the Lamanites,’” BYU Studies, vol.36, no.2 , 1996–97, p229).
    Second, we need to keep in mind that Lamanites, or descendants of Lehi were scattered all through the Western Hemisphere by the time of Joseph Smith, and the fact that the Church was more interested in what was close by for the leaders to visit than far away at the time, with one of the reasons in dealing with the Lamanite locales, the Latin America communities in the Caribbean, Mexico, Central and South America were heavily involved in wars of independence from Spain at the time and wars were rampant everywhere south of the U.S. border. In fact, beginning in earnest in 1820 opposed to the governing juntos against the Supreme Central Junta of Seville, after numerous small skirmishes from 1809 onward, and continuing during the time of Joseph Smith and the early Church, wars of independence were being fought all through South America. 
    The Spanish king had organized an army of ten battalions to fight in these Spanish American wars of Independence. This fighting took place all over South America, but especially along the western coastal lands, such as Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia and Chile, where eventually independence for these countries was achieved and Criollos (those of Spanish descent born in the New World) and mestizos (those of mixed American Indian and Spanish blood or culture) replaced the previous Spanish-born appointees in most political governments. But the fighting and unrest continued for some time. When Parley P. Pratt was assigned to open a mission in Chile as early as May, 1849, however, ill health delayed the appointment for two years, until October 1851, when the First Presidency wrote to him in California as he prepared to leave for South America and his mission in Santiago, Chile.
    By Nov 24^th he was in Chile, along with his wife Phoebe and Elder Rufus C. Allen having sailed from San Francisco to Valparaiso.

Left: Parley P. Pratt; Right: Santiago, Chile

Pratt’s mission area of which he was in charge, was bounded “on the west by the Pacific Ocean, on the south by Cape Horn, on the east by the Atlantic, and on the north b y the United States of North America.  It includes an area of about 6000 miles, from north to south, and 3000 from east to west; is composed of the Empire of Brazil, the Republics of Buenos Ayres, Chili, Peru, Bolivia, Columbia, Guatemala, Mexico, and many smaller states, tribes &c., probably containing forty millions of inhabitants, a vast majority of which understand the Spanish tongue.  When the keys of the fullness of the Gospel are turned in the Spanish language, this is the vast field that opens on the astonished vision; and the best of all is, more than two-thirds of this number are descendants of Lehi, and are included in the promises to Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Nephi, &c.” Howeever, as he also stated, “behold a civil war is raging here, and none will speak, write, or print much light on any subject.” Thus, the mission attempt failed because of the conditions of the country and people, Parley P. Pratt and others left Chile on March 5, 1852, and since the country and entire region was not free from such turmoil for several more years, it wasn’t until 1925, when the South Amerian mission was formed, with the name changed in 1935 to the Argentine Mission.
    Today there are missionary training centers (MTC) in Sao Paulo, Brazil (1977), the second largest such MTC in the world; also one in Santiago, Chile (1981); one in Argentina (1994); one in Lima, Peru (1998); and one in Bogota, Colombia (1992/2012). There is also an MTC in Campestre Churubusco, Mexico City (1979); and Guatemala City, Guatemala (1986). Obviously, the work has gone forward to “teach the Lamanites” in a very large way.
•“Ohio was the furthest western state in the U.S. in 1833.”
Response: That is simply not true. According to 1833 maps publication by the J.H. Colton & Co., New York, the U.S. had the states of Indiana (1819), Illinois (1818) and Missouri (1821), which were directly west of Ohio (1803), and also Kentucky (1792), Tennessee (1796), and Louisiana (1812), all west of Ohio, and also the southern states to the Gulf. You can go back to the Missouri Compromise of 1820-1821 and find these states (except Arkansas [1836] and Florida [1845], which were territories) all existed as well. In all reality, there were ten states that stretched further west than Ohio’s western border in 1833, and any simple research into the matter would show that.
•“Do you think the Lord knows where the Lamanites are?”
Response: Far better than you or me, or any current theorist.
•“On the Zion's Camp March, in 1834, Joseph wrote a personal letter to his wife telling her that he and the others had just walked over the plains of the Nephites”

The route of Zion’s Camp, showing both Hyrum’s Division and Joseph’s Division, which joined in beyond the Mississippi River in Missouri on their way to Independence

Response: What Joseph wrote was: “The whole of our journey, in the midst of so large a company of social honest and sincere men, wandering over the plains of the Nephites, recounting occasionally the history of the Book of Mormon, roving over the mounds of that once beloved people of the Lord, picking up their skulls & their bones, as a proof of its divine authenticity.” In a Western Hemisphere setting, where Lamanites and Nephites were eventually scattered after going north in Hagoth’s ships (Alma 63:5), it would be remarkable if Joseph did not respond in such a manner. He did not say this was where the Nephite nation of the Land of Promise existed, but the descendants of Lehi (which we showed in the letter to N.C. Saxton above)
(See the next post, “Answering a Heartland Theorist’s Erroneous Claims – Part IV” on more of this reader’s comments and our responses)