Alma 63:9 states that "there were many people who went forth into the land northward." According to E. L. Peay, it was near this time (50 B.C.) when a group of white people settled in the Mississippi Valley area. Some claim they came from Mexico or the Central America area. Archaeologists call them the Temple Mound Builders. They have been identified in the Mississippi and Ohio Valleys. Their mode of building is similar to that of the Maya of Central America prior to the time of Christ.
The Mound Builders are also know as the Hopewell Indians because the mounds were noted on Mr. Hopewell's farm land. They were a society of well-organized people led by an elite upper class" They were a close knit people who worked for the good of the community. They were "the finest metal workers of their time, crafting tools and ornaments out of copper and, occasionally, silver and gold." They buried their dead in large mounds and erected temples on top of their mounds. The Mound Builders were a white people with greater intelligence and physical skill than the Indians living around them. Their "thatched houses sometimes resembled Mexican houses, the pyramids resemble the pyramids of Middle America and were topped by wooden temples in the manner of the earliest Maya, and were built in successive layers, probably in periodic renewal ceremonies, as in Middle America; an eternal fire was kept burning in the temple, as in Mexico, and was renewed at a new fire ceremony . . ."
Why did the Nephites leave Zarahemla? Exploration of Central America today shows that the people of that time period were dredging the swamps and terracing their hillsides and waste places to raise crops. There is the possibility that they ran out of farming land or perhaps fled an epidemic. [E. L. Peay, The Lands of Zarahemla: Nephi's Land of Promise, pp. 94-96, 333-334] [See the commentary on Alma 62:52]
Alma 63:9 There were many people who went forth into the land northward ([Illustration]): Hagoth Ships Transported 5,400 People into the Land Northward [E. L. Peay, The Lands of Zarahemla: Nephi's Land of Promise, p. 331]