The Lamanites of that period were not only the descendants of Laman and Lemuel, but of Ishmael and many Nephites who had dissented from that more enlightened race. The Lamanites were a mixed race. Their leaders, almost invariably, were apostate Nephites who had been taught the ways of the Lord, but who through ambition or greed, had left the true Church, and sought their welfare among the traditionally inept Lamanites.
The Sacred Record notes that shortly after their dissensions from the Nephites to the Lamanites, "they became more hardened and impenitent, and more wild, wicked and ferocious than the Lamanites . . . giving way to indolence, and all manner of lasciviousness; yea, entirely forgetting the Lord their God."