Eighth Stage of Colonization and Settlement of Zarahemla

In Egypt the tribes of Israel were somewhat looked down upon as they were for the most part herdsmen caring for their cattle. Thus it is presumed that the land given them to live on named Goshen, was a land suitable for grazing of cattle. Now the name of Goshen and Jershon are similiar but there is no indication beyond that that they are the same name. Yet the actual geography of the land of Jershon in the Book of Mormon is that much of the land is a plains area gradulely sloping down from the foothills of the east side of the eastern cordilleras to the east sea upon which it may be well suited to so graze cattle upon being relatively flat land. It is given in the Book of Mormon how Ammon, as servant of Lemoni, did see after his flocks, the flocks of the king. And that others of the Lamanites, actually the people of Ishmael, did also have flocks. And there were 'flock rustlers' in the land. If this is so then Jershon would have been rather parsely settled with perhaps its chief city considered to be the city of Aaron to which Alma was once headed after being first cast out of the city of Ammonihah in the west. This city of Aaron seems to be located at the eastern mouth/end of the mountain pass/valley that cuts through the 'middle' of the eastern cordilleras wherein would have laid the land and City of Gideon. Jershon would also have provided a long curved coastal area which the Anti-Nephi-Lehies or the people of Ammon may well have desired as fishermen and harvester of the sea. So it would seem that the Nephites did not just pick any ole land, but likely one well suited to their Lamanite brothren for them to live in.

Now it has already been mentioned that stage 7 and stage 8 of the development of the national lands of Zarahemla occured much in parallel and at the same time. In Stage 7 it has been covered from the perspective of the development of the land of Antionum and now in Stage 8 the focus will be upon the development of the land of Jershon.

A futher perspectve, as has been noted in the Book of Mormon, one of the cultural features about the Lamanites was that they were primarily hunters and gathers and dwelt in tents. The traditional lands of the Lamanites were the lands of the west coast of Peru where they had access to the sea. When the converted Lamanites were brought into the land of Zarahemla, there was only one region that seemed to meet the criteria of the cultural life style of the Lamanite. Fortunately the land was sparcely settled, it needed settlement and ocupation to keep claim to the land as the Nephites had just recently cleared the eastern wilderness areas of other Lamanites, and it was the land upon which the people of Ammon, the Anti-Nephi-Lehies, would most naturally be accustomed to. It was a win - win proposition.

The Land of Jerson is represented by the three letter 'Js' on the map to the right. The reason for the three letter 'Js' is due to a couple of reasons. First, the People of Ammon where quite numerous, and they needed a large sector of the land in which to dwell. This increase in population was a mixed blessing. As noted, it gave a people to dwell in the vast eastern plains, the Ocinoco Plains, that extended all the way to the Eastern (Amazon) Sea. But it also placed the burden of defense of these people upon the Nephites, as the people of Ammon had covenanted with God that they would never take up the sword again. The second reason that the land of Jershon needed to be a vast large land, is quite simple. Farming, grazing, hunting and gathering in respect to the land and concentrating a population in large cities, takes less land to support more people than does the lifes style of being a hunter and gatherer and/or herdsmen as was the custom of theses Lamanite. It just takes more land per person to support the one culture over the other. And certainly the people of Ammon's use of the land would curtail the use by the more idle wanders of the southern Lamanites and keep them from advancing so far north.

Thus the land seems to be made up of the vast plains of Jershon, apart of which would later to be called the Plains of Nephihah, and even later to be known today as the Orinoco Plains west of today's resulting Orinoco River and as far to the northwest as to border upon the Sidon or Magdalena River outlet of that day. These plains were needed to support the large population of the Anti-Nephi-Lehies and their life style.

Before we leave the people of Ammon, it is of interest to comtemplate the nature of their formal name by which they called themselves, the 'Anti-Nephi-Lehies.' Anti mean not being of. Thus the first portion of the name indicates that these people where not descendants of Nephi as they were descendants of Laman, Lemuel, and the two sons of Ishmael. It has been revealed that it was to the two elder daughters of Lehi that the two sons of Ishmael where married. Thus the second part of the name confirms that revelation. They were not descended from Nephi, but they were all descended from Lehi one way or another. Thus they were not of Nephi but they all were 'Lehies' or 'Lehi-ites', 'Anti-Nephi-Lehies,' exactly what the hyphenated name states.

Now we turn to that parallel development which occurred between the land of Antionum and Jershon. The poor of the Zoramites of Antionum were converted by the missionary efforts of Alma and his missionaries. But the rich and ruling Zoramites threw them out of the land of Antionum. Here the people of Jershon opened their arms and accepted the poor Zoramites to come and live with them in the land of Jershon. But upon finding the intent of the remaining Zoramites in the land of Antionum, that it was to come upon and either capture and inslave there poorer brothers or to kill them, Captain Moroni first saw the need to move the covenanted non-combatants the people of Ammon from the land which the Nephites had been protecting. And so the people of Ammon were removed from Jershon over into the land region of Melek, which itself was a large upon mountain valley of the upper parallel river to the Sidon which flowed between the western and central cordillera mountain ranges.

And then Captain Moroni began to form his own defenses against the Lamanite - Zoramite confederacy. The immediate threat was upon the south of the land of Jershon. And there he formed a line of defense. He armed his armies with armor and weapons and clothed them to be protected from the nearly naked dressed and meagerly weaponized Lamanite/Zoramite armies. It was likely upon this very line that Captain Moroni would build a line of defensive cities by the names of Moroni on the east coast, to Nephihah in the center or middle of that line and to the region's capital city of Aaron. And with the building of those defensive cities of Captain Moroni we will move into further stages of development and settlement of the national lands of Zarahemla.

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