The danger to the Zoramite way of life was still present after the departure of the missionary group if there were people in the land who did believe the words of these Nephite missionaries. As noted above, the threat is not simply religious, but absolutely revolutionary. If there were “Nephite sympathizers” in the community, it threatened a source of rebellion and social disruption. There was a real danger to the social hierarchy on which the entire structure of Zoramite society was based.
One of the ways to understand the very real fear of the Zoramites is to recall the nature of the people who listened to Alma and Amulek. As we noted, they were people who were on the bottom of the social hierarchy, and combined with their location this is highly suggestive that these were farmers. The farming imagery that was used in both Alma and Amulek’s discourses would further support that hypothesis. What would happen to the social structure of the Zoramites if the religious underpinnings of that hierarchy were to be severed at the level of the farmers?
In a Mesoamerican economy the elite hold their position by rite of birth and rite of the gods. Their privileged position was defined by religion. The religious position defined the mutual obligations of various people, and the economic well-being of the elite depended upon their ability to absorb tribute goods – or taxes in a more understandable terminology. Since this was not a monetary economy, all such tribute was in the form of goods, and clearly a rather important commodity was food. The economic position of the elite depended upon the farmer’s willingness to give up a portion of their production to the elite.
With the removal of the religious structure that defined the will of the gods to supply the elite, the farmers might not have the same incentive to provide their goods to the elite. Were this idea (especially the Nephite idea of egalitarianism) to spread among the farmers, there could well be a farmer revolt and a withholding of food from the elite. This scenario is not simple speculation, but a microcosm of the forces that eventually led to the destruction of Maya society. Notice how the erosion of the delicate balance between food production and the elite led to the downfall of Copan:
“Thus during the second half of the eighth century the pressures mounted, on the community at large and upon the royal dynasty. The latter’s power and authority reached its peak under 18 Rabbit. But after his capture and sacrifice at the hands of Quirigua in 738, doubts may already have begun to grow about how effective and useful kings actually were. The Hieroglyphic Stairway was completed and other building projects were to be undertaken as a public reassertion of royal authority. Stability was restored for a while. But Yax Pac, who succeeded in 763, appears to have inherited increasing political problems, surrounded by an aristocracy to whom he was obliged to concede more and more prerogatives and power in order to maintain his position. As the century came to its close, however, he may have been only too keen to distribute the blame as widely as possible. For with food in ever shorter supply, Copan was now an impoverished and sick society.9 Extensive bone studies for this period have revealed severe malnourishment and disease here, throughout the valley, affecting not just commoners but royalty as well. Whatever attempts were made at power-sharing or other ad hoc political arrangements, the stark reality was that little could be done to halt the slide. In the end it was the royal dynasty which became the inevitable target for retribution. That order and prosperity, the equilibrium between men and gods, between humans and the forces of nature, that kings were supposed to maintain had gone from the world. Their old claims of a special relationship with the divine were proven to be spurious and their very existence could no longer be justified.” (David Drew. The Lost Chronicles of the Maya Kings. University of California Press, 1999, p. 348-9)
With great reason the leadership of the Zoramites would fear a rebellion, particularly one located in the farmer base upon which they depended. With such a fear it makes sense that the solution was to expel all of those tainted with the egalitarian ideas. While that would at least temporarily reduce the agricultural base, it removed the threat of an eventual complete rebellion in the agricultural base if the dissatisfaction on that level of society were to increase and more and more of the farmers were to follow those who apparently did believe in the words of Alma and Amulek.