This verse provides a frustratingly brief summary of complex social information. These “robbers” are prisoners who have accepted the gospel message, meaning that the Nephites had kept them under guard for four years after their capture and presumed conversion. Possibly these years have served as a test of their faithfulness. When the Nephites released these former captives, they gave them land “wherewith to subsist upon,” apparently in a single location. They, thus, formed a separate and permanent settlement. Because they had been warriors, their families of origin (and possibly their own wives and children) were still in the Gadianton city-state. Mormon does not mention how this problem was solved—whether they married Nephite women or whether they brought wives from their Gadianton homeland. This latter possibility is not so far-fetched, as the Mesoamerican world would have seen several transfers of population. The attitude of the Gadianton government—in whatever form it still survived—is not mentioned.
The most important detail is that these captives “were desirous to remain Lamanites,” a statement with two interesting implications. First, although they had pledged peace, they did not pledge allegiance or become part of the Nephite polity. Second, “remaining” Lamanites suggests that they had been Lamanites before becoming Gadianton robbers. It confirms that Mormon saw the Gadianton robbers as a separate “people.” These former Gadiantons are “others”—that is, not Nephites. They have returned to being “Lamanites” after a period of being Gadiantons. Mormon sees the Gadianton secret oaths as external to the Lamanites, a view consistent with his perception of the Gadiantons of his own day as connected to the northern culture. Even when he connects the Gadiantons to the past, he connects them to the Jaredites, a people from the north. This statement also confirms Mormon’s perception that the Gadiantons are an external influence among both the Lamanites and the Nephites. The time of Christ is a couple of centuries early for the Teotihuacano influence that Mormon will assert as quintessentially Gadianton. However, Mormon reads that later history into his descriptions of the earlier Gadiantons. (See Helaman, Part 1: Context, Chapter 3, “The Gadianton Robbers in Mormon’s Theological History: Their structural Role and Plausible Identification.”)