Geographic/political: Our analysis of the political system of the land of Zarahemla is one of multiple cities, each with their own government under an alliance headed by Zarahemla. This is the basic model that we see in Mesoamerican that is forming at this time and becomes much clearer in the next few hundred years when the monuments have texts that can now be read. This fragmentation of the society into mostly independent cities with a loose confederation is behind the picture that we see from Moroni. Mormon tells us that Moroni “sent forth in all the parts of the land where there were dissensions…” Of course this also suggests that there were parts of the land where there were not such dissensions (for instance, we would not expect any such dissension in Jershon).
What appears to be happening in the land of Zarahemla is that there are regionalized trends that appear to follow the surrounding land’s tendencies to kings and hierarchical societies. While we cannot be certain of the specific location of all of these dissensions, we know that the earlier Ammonihahite dissension was northwest of Zarahemla. It is quite probable, from the archaeological record, that other downriver sites would have been involved. Sorenson’s analysis of this situation in historical terms has the movement towards kingship being related to the lineages of the pre-Mosiah Zarahemlaites who were superseded in power by Mosiah and the Nephites:
“The geography we are following makes that area coincide with the lower central depression of Chiapas, where the speakers of the Zoquean language had long lived. fn They had been in the land long before the Nephites arrived. Their ancestors had been bearers of the Olmec culture in the time of the Jaredites. There is little reason to question that they were of basically the same stock as the folk followers of chief Zarahemla. Their leaders would have lost a great deal of power and privilege when the Nephite intruders took over rulership in Mosiah I’s day. At the time we are now considering, the expansion of the Nephite elite’s power throughout the entire valley could well have spurred this “nobility” to wish to regain rulership for one of their own lineages. This is the logical base from which an Amlici probably proceeded. The variety of peoples under Nephite domination was so geographically divided by river and “wilderness” areas and so linguistically and culturally varied that “dissension” and power struggles among the localized groups, like the one started by Amlici, long continued to challenge the “Nephis,” the ruling line descended from the original king, Nephi. Evidence from Chiapas suggests that the Santa Rosa/Zarahemla area might be at loggerheads with the area downstream. The Chiapa de Corzo site, the largest city within the entire central depression at this time and the heart of that downstream sector, was larger and more prosperous than Santa Rosa. No wonder it might rebel against overlordship located upstream. Furthermore, at this period of time (the second century B.C.) Chiapa de Corzo maintained clear-cut cultural ties to the Mayan speakers to the south, that is, to Lamanite country in our Book of Mormon terms. fn An alliance between Amlicites based in the Chiapa de Corzo area and the Lamanites in Nephi (highland Guatemala) would have formed a vise, putting pressure on the Nephite center. Of course, we cannot say for sure that this geographical arrangement is how things really were. No one knows enough facts yet to be sure, but it very reasonably could have been so.” (John L. Sorenson, An Ancient American Setting for the Book of Mormon [Salt Lake City and Provo: Deseret Book Co., Foundation for Ancient Research and Mormon Studies, 1985], 196.)