Limhi recounts a very brief account of the history of his people. It becomes a type of public confession of sins that will be forgiven and reconciled through the renewed connection to the people of Zarahemla. This is history that will be recounted in greater detail later, but Mormon gives it from Limhi’s perspective, where it is accomplished history, before he takes a flashback to pull information from different documents which give the information as it occurred. One of the reasons that we have this particular duplication is that Mormon is using three discernible sources for this story. The first is the large plates. On that record, we may assume that he found Ammon’s record. Thus, the events that Ammon would have participated in are recorded from the large plate source into which they were certainly entered after they returned to the city of Zarahemla.
The next two sources come from the land of Nephi. The first is the record of Zeniff. Mormon quotes what Zeniff wrote, but narrates what must have been the official additions to that record which tell of Noah and Limhi. Finally, there is a separate record Alma1 kept, and Mormon similarly quotes from that. It is possible that all of these records were written into the large plate record, but the way that Mormon uses them suggests that they were indeed separate records.
The result of history led to the need to pay tribute to the king of the Lamanites. This condition of paying tribute is considered bondage. It is also called “robbing” in later texts. This relationship between a conquering king and a defeated one is also very typical of the Mesoamerican economic system. Conquests typically did not create incorporation of the conquered people. The conquered people were allowed to continue with their separate government, but were required to pay tribute. The flow of goods to the conqueror was the desired effect, not the annexation of land.