There were always some Nephites who being dissatisfied with local conditions seceded and went over and became Lamanites. Ambition and the longing for dominion over their fellows prompted many of them to seek supreme authority. By stirring up the Lamanites to resentfulness for supposed wrongs committed by the Nephites, the Lamanites sought revenge. The brutal and angry passions which lay dormant in the savage breasts of the Lamanites, were fanned like coals into a blaze, and it was not difficult to recruit an army of considerable size to go against the Nephites. In the same year that Helaman was made historian and keeper of the Plates of Nephi, just such a thing happened. A numerous army of Lamanites, excited to the point of murder, made a savage attack upon the army of Moronihah, but were beaten and driven back to their own land with great loss.