Culture: Mormon spells out the relationship between the internal tensions and external conflict. External wars always drain a community’s resources; but when the community is united, the support for the military campaigns is greater and the burdens are more equably shared. An external threat combined with disunity caused by internal unrest, however, produces the most dangerous condition: the need to defend themselves from their own countrymen as well as from outsiders. The situation becomes even more serious when the faction creating the internal contention is sympathetic with those causing the external threat. In this case, the king-men certainly have much in common with Amalickiah, who is the quintessential king-man.
History: Amalickiah’s invasion begins a very long war with the Nephites. It begins in the twenty-fifth year of the reign of the judges (Alma 51:37) and ends in the thirty-first year (Alma 62:39). The Book of Mormon reports the war from a Nephite perspective, which imputes no motive to the Lamanites save hatred. It is highly unlikely that hatred alone would have justified so long an engagement. It is more likely that control of trade routes was at stake. The land of Zarahemla sat between the land of Nephi on the south and the unnamed lands to the north. While the Book of Mormon does not describe them well, history indicates that these northern lands are inhabited by major populations and cultures. By this time the Zapotec site of Monte Alban is a major cultural center, and in Central Mexico Cuicuilco dominated the cultural landscape. Trade routes to these northern cultures could be important and would become very important in the coming several hundred years as Teotihuacan began its widespread influence, including a presence in the area that is posited as the land of Nephi.