Giddianhi makes this war personal by claiming injustices against his people, particularly those in the army. Giddianhi makes it appear that he is personally holding back his people from heaping vengeance upon the Nephites for “the many wrongs which ye have done unto them.” These Gadiantons are a combination of Nephite dissenters and Lamanites, both of whom might adopt that statement as a justification for their actions. The origin of this newer Gadianton society is described in Helaman 11:24–26:
And it came to pass that in the eightieth year of the reign of the judges over the people of Nephi, there were a certain number of the dissenters from the people of Nephi, who had some years before gone over unto the Lamanites, and taken upon themselves the name of Lamanites, and also a certain number who were real descendants of the Lamanites, being stirred up to anger by them, or by those dissenters, therefore they commenced a war with their brethren.
And they did commit murder and plunder; and then they would retreat back into the mountains, and into the wilderness and secret places, hiding themselves that they could not be discovered, receiving daily an addition to their numbers, inasmuch as there were dissenters that went forth unto them.
And thus in time, yea, even in the space of not many years, they became an exceedingly great band of robbers; and they did search out all the secret plans of Gadianton; and thus they became robbers of Gadianton.
Either through the Lamanites, who have from the beginning claimed political usurpation, or as representatives of the Gadiantons who had ruled in Zarahemla but had been made “extinct” (Hel. 11:10), this band of Gadiantons might lay claim to justification by asserting that the Nephites had denied them rightful rule.
Giddianhi threatens that his well-trained and personally vindictive army is highly motivated to “visit you with utter destruction.” Giddianhi is making the stakes high. Rather than a simple war to create a tribute state, he declares that this could be a war of annihilation.
This threat of destruction invokes the image of certain military situations from the later Aztecs. “Burning a city to accomplish its defeat was not common,” observes Ross Hassig. “But depending on the town’s willingness to negotiate, the city might be burned if it did not surrender once its main temple had been fired. When the Aztecs defeated Coaixtlahuacan, for example, the people fled to strongholds atop the nearby hills. Thereupon the Aztecs burned the temple, but they refrained from razing the city when its inhabitants pledged to pay tribute. But when the lords of Alahuiztlan refused to submit and become tributaries, the city was razed.”
This threatening letter appears to be laying out a similar range of options. Submission as a tributary would assure survival, but failure to submit would mean destruction.