According to John Sorenson, the nature of the Nephites' organizational problem is described in the phrasing of Mormon 2:4: "We did come to the city of Angola, and we did take possession of the city, and make preparations to defend ourselves against the Lamanites." This statement is remarkable because Angola was already part of the greater land of Zarahemla. Why would Mormon's forces have to "take possession" of it? The key point about the Nephite political structure has already been made several times: there was no unitary Nephite state. What we see in Mormon's appointment and in the affair at Angola is the system of lineage leadership in the political arena. Leaders held power on the basis of the loyalty given to them by kin or "friends" who had made a commitment to ally with a powerful major lineage. Smaller units had to link themselves with others in order to survive in a dog-eat-dog world of tests of power. That had been true just before the Savior's appearance (3 Nephi 7:2-6) and it was true again now. Each lineage tended to occupy certain areas and communities. Each was tied with others through interpersonal bonds--distant shared ancestry, trade alliances, friendship, intermarriage, shared religion, and so on--as these connections were cultivated by their leaders. Thus combined armies would be put together according to the political weather of the moment.
We can get a glimpse of how such a system worked at the time of Cortez's conquest, twelve centuries after Mormon. The essentials of the pattern had changed little in between. We saw earlier how, when Cortez first encountered the Tlaxcalans, who eventually became his allies against the Aztecs, he found a fragmented leadership. "These same Caciques [leaders] . . . came out to receive us, and brought with them their sons and nephews and many of the leading inhabitants, each group of kindred and clan a party by itself." Among the Nephites similar fragmentation surely prevailed, the military commander using powers of persuasion and diplomacy about as often as he used his limited authority. . .
As the Nephite forces retreated still farther, they repeated this process over and over, forcing local people to cast their lots with the retreating lineages and their armies. All the political and military means available to Mormon and his people they used to "gather in our people as fast as it were possible, that we might get them together in one body" (Mormon 2:7). [John L. Sorenson, An Ancient American Setting for the Book of Mormon, pp. 336-337]
Geographical [Theory Map]: Mormon 2:3 Nephites Begin Retreat towards the North Countries (327 A.S.--331 A.S.)