Chapter 52
Ammoron succeeds
Amalickiah as king of the Lamanites—Moroni, Teancum, and Lehi lead the Nephites
in a victorious war against the Lamanites—The city of Mulek is retaken, and
Jacob the Lamanite is slain. About 66–64 B.C.
It’s morning. The Lamanites are ready to continue the battle
with the Nephites. Their commander had not appeared. They went to him, and
found him in his tent, dead. They saw Teancum and his army were ready to give
battle.
The Lamanites were struck with fear. The gathered together
and retreated to the fortified city of Mulek.
Amalickiah’s brother, Ammoron, was appointed both the leader
of the army and king of the Lamanites. Once again, we see how Nephite dissenters
are responsible for inciting the Lamanites to war. “Ammoron, a ‘bold Lamanite,’
was really a Nephite-Zoramite (Alma 54:23–24), and thus so were his brother
Amalickiah (see Alma 52:3) and his (Ammoron’s) son who later became the
Lamanite king Tubaloth (see Helaman 1:16).”[1]
His first command was to maintain the cities they held.
Teancum, seeing the Lamanites were determined to hold their
cities as well as their numbers, decided not to attack the Lamanites in their
fortified cities.
Instead, he continued making preparations for war. Teancum
had them built walls around the cities. This was a common Nephite tactic. “And now
it came to pass that Moroni did not stop making preparations for war, or to
defend his people against the Lamanites; for he caused that his armies should
commence in the commencement of the twentieth year of the reign of the judges,
that they should commence in digging up heaps of earth round about all the
cities, throughout all the land which was possessed by the Nephites” (Alma
50:1).
He continued this until Moroni had sent reinforcements.
Moroni also ordered Teancum to keep all prisoners they
captured. The Lamanites held many Nephite prisoners-of-war. Moroni intended to
exchange Lamanite POWs for Nephite POWs.
Moroni also ordered Teancum to fortify the land Bountiful
and secure a narrow pass through which the Lamanite army would need to pass to
get to the land northward. Securing the pass allowed them to harass the
Lamanite army.
Teancum was charted to protect his quarter of the land. Moroni
told him he would do all he could to help rid the Lamanites from that land. He
would also attempt to devise a strategy to re-take the cities held by the
Lamanites as well as strengthen the cities that had not been taken by the
Lamanites.
Moroni informed Teancum he could not support him directly. The
Lamanites moved in on the Nephites along the borders of the land by the west
sea. Moroni was forced to go against them to protect his land.
Messengers were sent to inform the queen of his brother’s
death. Ammoron gathered a large army and marched against the Nephites. His goal
was to harass and draw a large part of the Nephite forces from other parts of
the land. (In Alma 52:13 the phrase [draw away] has a different meaning,
referring not to persuading people to join a cause but to luring away and
entrapping a military force”[2]).
He commanded those who possessed the cities to also harass
the Nephites on the borders by the east sea. They should take possession of as
much land as they were able.
Moroni established armies in to protect the south and west
borders. He began to march his troops to assist Teancum in retaking lost
cities. Teancum had received an order to attack and retake the city of Mulek.
Teancum began to prepare to retake Mulek. When he arrived,
he saw he could not defeat the Lamanites because they were in the fortified
city. His army retreated back to Bountiful to wait for Moroni and his army.
Moroni’s army arrived. A council of war was called an
attended by Moroni, Teancum and their chief captains. They were trying to come
up with a strategy to bring the Lamanites out of the city and gain an advantage
over the Lamanites and retake Mulek.
Moroni sent a delegation to the Lamanites. They attempted to
get their leader, Jacob, to come out of the city with his army and meet them on
the plains. Here again we see a Lamanite leader, Jacob, who is not a Lamanite,
but a dissident Nephite, a Zoramite. Jacob refused.
[1] Alma’s
Enemies: The Case of the Lamanites, Amlicites, and Mysterious Amalekites,
J. Christopher Conkling, Journal of Book of Mormon Studies 14/1 (2005): 131.
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