Page - 144 - in JRFM - Journal Religion Film Media, Volume 05/02

and it views the subsequent colonization of the continent by white “Gentiles” as a necessary event that allowed for the restoration of the gospel.7 Indeed, Mormon theology holds that while devastating to the original inhabitants of the continent, European colonial projects were necessary for the eventual redemp- tion of the Lamanites. The Book of Mormon itself states that the Gentiles will bring the gospel back to the Lamanites (read: Native Americans) prior to the Second Coming through missionary work.8 From the nineteenth until the mid-twentieth centuries, Mormons ascribed the Lamanite prophecies most directly to First Nations peoples of the United States. Even during these early years, however, most Mormons believed that all of the original inhabitants of North and South America descended from this Book of Mormon race.9 Bruce R. McConkey, an apostle of the Church, canon- ized this view in 1981 when he wrote an introduction to the book that stated that the Lamanites “are the principal ancestors of the American Indians”.10 Dur- ing much of the twentieth century, Church attempts to build up the Lamanites dealt primarily with engaging Amerindian populations in the United States. One especially clear example of this was the Lamanite Placement Program (1954– 1996), where the Church identified well-to-do (almost exclusively white) fam- ilies as possible foster parents for baptized Amerindians – mostly Navajo – so that these could attend majority-white US public schools.11 The principal goal of the initiative was to train Lamanite children to eventually become church lead- ers. The controversial program was most active during the 1960s and 1970s, 7 Although Joseph Smith published the Book of Mormon in 1830, adherents to the faith believe it was written by the original inhabitants of the Americas. According to Church doctrines, Smith served as a translator of this long-lost work. As such, prophecies surrounding the arrival of Columbus to the Americas are, according to believers, ancient prophecies that truly came to pass millennia later. See 1 Nephi 13 in The Book of Mormon 2013. 8 In the Book of Mormon, the prophet Nephi states, “then shall the fullness of the gospel of the Messiah come unto the Gentiles, and from the Gentiles unto the remnant of our seed [the Lamanites, or indigenous peoples of the Americas]”. See 1 Nephi 15:13–16. See also D. Smith 2003, 32. 9 John-Charles Duffy discusses two principal approaches to Lamanite identity in the LDS Church: Hemispheric Lamanite Identity, which suggests that everyone of indigenous descent in the Americas and Polynesia is a literal descendant of the Lamanites, and Limited Lamanite Identity, which holds that the Lamanites belonged to a small group that was ultimately completely engulfed by neighboring civilizations. The way that individual members interpret Lamanite identity generally reflects the stakes that Lamanite identity has (or does not have) in their own personal and spiritual relationship with the Church. Duffy’s entire article provides an excellent analysis of the fluidity of Lamanite identity in LDS teachings over the years. See Duffy 2008, 121–122. 10 See McConkey 1990. In 2006, after DNA evidence placed this assertion in question, the Church softened its stance and amended this foreword to the Book of Mormon, claiming that the Lamanites “are among the ancestors of the American Indians”. 11 For an in-depth discussion of the LDS Indian Student Placement Program, see Garrett 2016; see also Brandon Morgan 2009, 191–217. 144 | David S. Dalton www.jrfm.eu 2019, 5/2, 141–165