Moroni’s tactic of gathering people from out of the lands of the dissenters and bringing the population of the faithful together created a visual contrast in the numbers. Solely within their own lands, it might have seemed that the dissenters would have been in the majority, but a majority with a strong minority population. When that minority was pulled out, it diminished the apparent size of the dissenting cities, and greatly increased the size of the loyal Nephites. Seeing this disparity, Amalickiah and those who would follow him left the land of Zarahemla and went to the land of Nephi. The direction of their travel tells us even more about the nature of their dissention. They were more comfortable in Lamanite territory than Nephite, precisely because they had adopted more Lamanite concepts. They, as the Amlicites and Zoramites before them, failed to convert the main Nephite population to “Lamanitism” and therefore they left and went to a land where they could live in the form they had decided to adopt.