Related to my post about the Mound Builder myth, I recently read an article in Dialogue, entitled “White Is an Ite: The Book of Mormon’s Misappropriation of the Great Law of Peace,” by Thomas Murphy. [1]
In the article, (which is a summation of his forthcoming book) Murphy argues that the Book of Mormon’s depiction of a unified, “white” post-Christian society reflects settler colonial ideology and may draw, directly or indirectly, from Indigenous Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) traditions, particularly the Great Law of Peace.
The article begins by examining a paradox in the Book of Mormon narrative: after Christ’s appearance, divisions such as “Nephite” and “Lamanite” disappear, yet the people are described as becoming “white” and “fair.” Murphy highlights the contradiction that “white” is treated as a raceless or universal identity, even though it functions as another category like another “ite.” This framing, he argues, reflects a broader ideological move in which whiteness is presented as both normative and invisible, masking its racial meaning.
Murphy takes on others who interpret the Book of Mormon as presenting race as mutable, suggesting that darker skin (associated with divine curses) can be transformed through righteousness. While some see this as progressive, Murphy challenges that view. He argues instead that this “racial mutability” mirrors settler colonial strategies: rather than celebrating diversity, it promotes assimilation into a dominant (white) identity, effectively erasing Indigenous distinctiveness.
Using studies in Indigenous history, Murphy centers Indigenous perspectives that interpret the Book of Mormon not as liberating but as a tool of colonial erasure. He emphasizes that narratives of becoming “white” or joining a universal Christian identity often imply the loss of Indigenous sovereignty, culture, and identity. Indigenous voices cited in the article reject the idea that becoming “white” is desirable or meaningful, instead affirming their existing identities and traditions.
A major section of the article connects these theological ideas to historical policy. Murphy discusses mid-20th-century U.S. “termination” policies, which aimed to dissolve tribal sovereignty and assimilate Native Americans into mainstream society. He shows that some Latter-day Saint politicians explicitly drew on Book of Mormon teachings, especially the idea that Indigenous peoples would become “white and delightsome”, to justify these policies. The result was significant harm to Indigenous communities, including loss of land, political autonomy, and economic stability.
In response, Indigenous activists developed counter-narratives. Some argued that Joseph Smith’s Book of Mormon drew from Indigenous oral traditions, particularly the Haudenosaunee Great Law of Peace; a foundational narrative describing a peacemaker who united multiple nations into a confederacy while preserving their sovereignty. Murphy takes these claims seriously and examines both oral and written evidence suggesting that Smith may have had access to such traditions through early 19th-century interactions with Indigenous people or through published accounts.
Importantly, authentic Haudenosaunee traditions do not associate peace with whiteness. The idea that becoming “white” is the endpoint of spiritual or social progress appears only in settler interpretations, including the Book of Mormon. Murphy argues that this reflects a broader colonial pattern: Indigenous traditions are appropriated, stripped of their cultural context, and reshaped to support settler narratives and authority.
The article concludes that the Book of Mormon’s portrayal of a raceless, unified “white” society is not a progressive vision of equality but a colonial fantasy. By presenting whiteness as universal and nonracial, the text obscures the power dynamics and violence of settler colonialism. Murphy argues that this framework has had real-world consequences, from theological assumptions to federal policy, contributing to the marginalization and erasure of Indigenous peoples.
The main takeaway for me was Murphy’s call for a reexamination of the Book of Mormon through Indigenous perspectives. I found it interesting that he flips the narrative: that which appears inclusive or unifying may actually function to silence Indigenous voices and histories. Recognizing these dynamics, he suggests, opens the door to more honest and critical engagement with the text and its legacy.
Have you heard of this interpterion of indigenous influence on Book of Mormon themes?
Your thoughts?
[1] you can listen to a Mormonish podcast interview of Murphy talking about his book here.
Image by OpenClipart-Vectors from Pixabay
Wheat & Tares 
Let me begin by stating that I issue my strongest possible condemnation to racism of any and every kind. It has no place in a civilized society.
It is true that Joseph Smith tended to follow the anti-racist example of his grandfather Asael Smith. But sadly, not completely. Joseph was much more forward thinking on race than most of society at the time, but there are undeniably racist elements in the Book of Mormon. Apologists these days like to claim that “whiteness” in the Book of Mormon refers only to purity of heart or some nebulous concept of virtue, but the context shows that it was a reference to skin color. A standard of skin color so white, by the way, that sunburned farmers and captains of whaling vessels would not have met it.
Thus, it is incredibly unlikely that Indigenous viewpoints of the 1800s influenced the Book of Mormon’s view of whiteness. About as likely as Dua Lipa teaching advanced chemistry at Harvard.
The better course is to spend one’s time condemning the racism of the present and standing up to those who promote racist ideas–both in politics and in the Church. Racism must be forever confined to the hot dog bins of the past.
In the first verse of chapter three in the Book of Ether we read:
“And it came to pass that the brother of Jared . . . did molten out of a rock sixteen small stones; and they were white and clear, even as transparent glass . . .”
In this context “white” seems to mean “clear” and “transparent.” And I think the same can be said for when the word is used with respect people in the BoM. It means that they–like the stones prepared by the brother of Jared–are “clear” in the sense of being “pure.”
The race-related elements of the Book of Mormon seem to have aged like fine milk, except that in reality the milk was from a sick cow and was never fine.
I’m reminded of a web page I read meant years ago with a list of passages in the Book of Mormon that make no sense if the Lamanites had darker skin than the Nephites and another list of passages that made no sense if they didn’t. It’s quite a mess.
Thanks for the thought-provoking read, Bishop Bill!
If the Book of Mormon was written for “our day”, why does it not reflect our day? The BOM addresses all the problems and debates of the 1830 Upstate New York burned over district. If the argument with different interpretations of “whiteness” and “cursed” had different meanings back then, then the Book of Mormon was not written for our day, be it 1982 or 2026. Now we know, the Book of Mormon was written on paper and etched on 1 few tin plates in 1828, from a stone hat. But the origins were from young Joseph’s mind in as early as 1823. The seminary curriculum for decades was false! Current apologist gymnastics fails again, unless you like over sugared Kool-Aide.
Calling European descendants living in Central and South America “Lamanites”, for the past 7 decades, is overt racism and wrong on many levels.
Somewhat ironic, having been taught “The Lamanites will blossom as a rose” gave me a respective that the Native American/Hispanic/Polynesian group/cultures are blessed and should be revered.
This is my main objection to the BOM as “history.” It doesn’t reflect or accord with the actual history of native peoples, something that it took me some more exposure due to travel to figure out. It’s just not there. The religions of the Maya are much richer than anything presented in the BOM, for example, and they are also tied to geological features of the Yucatan that Joseph Smith likely didn’t know existed. (I only mention the Maya specifically because they seem to be a favorite stand-in for most LDS readers, but it’s like whack-a-mole because as soon as it becomes clear that these aren’t the Nephites/Lamanites you are looking for, the LDS “scholar” immediately jumps to another indigenous group to try to force the narrative to fit.) But of course, for settlers, most of whom were what we today would call White Christian Supremacists, native culture, its people, its religions, will all bow the knee to Christianity, and Christian settlers will elevate them out of their “filthy and loathesome” ways. It’s literally right there on the page, but it’s very easy to overlook it if you don’t feel that way or don’t see it from a non-white, non-settler perspective. Americans are settlers or descended from settlers. Our ancestors settled here and drove out (intentionally or not) the native populations and cultures. Psychologically, we have to find or invent a justification for our and their actions.
As William “King” Hale puts it in Killers of the Flower Moon (to justify murdering the Osage) “I love them, but in the turning of the Earth… they’re gonna go. Their time is over. That’s it! Gone!” Then he adds, chillingly “There might be a public outcry for a while, but then you know what happens? People forget. They don’t remember, they don’t care. They just don’t care. It’s just gonna be another everyday common tragedy.” One of the Osage chiefs says “I made peace with the white man and lay down my arms never to take them up again and now I and my fellow tribesmen must suffer.” Hale and his cronies murdered the Osage systematically, funneling their oil-based wealth to white grifters in the 1920s.
The BOM celebrates the white settlers’ actions and shows them as white saviors to the natives, which is also the perspective of Queen Isabella who punished Columbus by stripping away his wealth and titles for mistreating her new “subjects” who were also “fellow Christians” due (in many cases) to violent, forced conversions. The BOM seems to be unaware of Columbus’s mixed record at best, ignominy at worst.
I have found Dr Murphy’s work to be intensely interesting, compelling, and certainly accurate in naming the BofM to be cultural appropriation and a justification for European settler colonialism. I’ve listened to many stories supporting this, related by indigenous people throughout the Americas. I feel the pain, and yes, I’m a bleeding heart liberal.
My parents participated in the “Indian placement program”, which was another attempt to erase indigenous culture and identity. It was not a happy child who lived with my parents and youngest sibling.
The Q15 is still teaching indigenous people that they are Lamanites today
In spite of all evidence to the contrary. I find it appalling!
I live in the Santa Fe stake area, where there are many indigenous people living. And a few of them embrace an identity with the BofM. Many others suffer from Mormon childhood trauma. I can’t help thinking that J.S.jr has done a huge amount of damage in creating the BofM.
My parents, too, participated in the Indian placement program before I was born. I would hear stories about the “Lamanite” boy named Junior who stayed with my family for a few months. They didn’t have many nice things to say about him, unfortunately. In my elementary school in Provo, I distinctly remember teachers and aids referring to Native Americans as Lamanites. I agree with the other posts that this is a form of racism to call Native Americans Lamanites. It imposes a distinct religious narrative, one that sees the Lamanites as inferiors who rejected Jesus, on them. It ignores their real history and background in explaining who they really are, their heritage, and their culture. It lumps them together in a group and denies their individually.
I’ve never heard the interpretation mentioned in the OP. But I can no longer see the Book of Mormon as anything other than Bible fan fiction that gives a very bad explanation about the origins of Native Americans that has long been debunked by modern science, archaeology, and history, which reveals a much more complex and detailed narrative about the Native American groups that looks nothing like what is described in the Book of Mormon.
I sometimes see in the Book of Mormon what seems like very European perceptions of Native American culture. One time this occurred to me when reading from Alma about Ammon and his brothers preaching to the Lamanites. There’s a passage where one of them discusses the idea of a “Great Spirit” with a Lamanite king he’s preaching to. It felt like a bit of a caricature to me. It got me wondering, would Native Americans actually speak of their own religion in that way, or is that merely a phrase Europeans came up with to describe it? It turns out, if you use Google’s historical book search tool, the phrase “Great Spirit” peaked in usage in the 1840s, which I took as something of a confirmation of my hypothesis. The Book of Mormon was produced during a time when that particular way of talking about the beliefs of Native Americans was experiencing a surge in popularity. I’ve never been able to think of that story in the Book of Mormon the same way since then.
The Book of Mormon is one of those rare books that has caused interested parties to produce a veritable library of works written about it. Aside from the Bible it is probably the most studied religious text in American history–as per Google’s AI. And so what we don’t have is something that can be easily dismissed because, forsooth, someone wrote a book or paper about some novelty in the text. Because in order to be fair we’d have to look at everything else that’s been written about the BoM–or at least the stuff produced by qualified scholars–and it’s a veritable mountain of material.
Forsooth?
BYU professors flooding the zone with publications that 1) barely anyone reads and 2) have no acceptance among non-Mormon scholars and experts doesn’t count. The church encourages BYU faculty to write “faith-promoting” publications through believing presses. BYU relieves faculty of their responsibilities to publish secular peer-reviewed research so that they have time to write about the Book of Mormon, etc. A fair number of believing volunteers have in recent decades bandwagoned BYU faculty and have published quite a bit of stuff as well through presses that no one outside Mormonism recognizes as legitimate research. Outside Mormonism, the Book of Mormon has barely been researched. Scholars of religious studies do not recognize the Book of Mormon as a significant religious text in the US, simply because Mormons constitute only 1 percent of the US population. The volume of publications about the Book of Mormon is not due to widespread interest in the book along the general US population.
Brad,
Of course you’re right about the BoM not being researched very much by scholars outside the church and the lack of peer reviewed studies on the subject in the larger world of academia. But even so, I think it’s only fair to recognize that latter-day saint scholars are the experts on the BoM–and that they’ve produced a mountain of topnotch literature on the subject. And so even though their work may not be circulated much in the larger world of related studies that’s not to say that it lacks in quality. It just means that students may have to do a little more work vis-a-vis verifying the quality of the latter-day saint studies on their own rather than relying on an “outside” peer review process.