Mormon Studies Review
Keywords
Mormons, indigenous, Lamanites, identity, colonization
Abstract
Over generations, scholars have emphasized the binary of “Mormons and Indians” using racialized terms.1 This language and approach often overlooks complex dynamics and locally specific identities of peoples and communities that engaged with Mormonism in North America and Central America.2 Since the founding of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, many Mormons have identified Indigenous peoples of the Americas as “Lamanites,” comparable to how white settler colonizers categorized Natives as “Indians.” Although colonizers, including Mormon settlers, used such terms to shape Indigenous identities and populations, individuals and communities appropriated and adapted them.
BYU ScholarsArchive Citation
King, Farina
(2019)
"Indigenizing Mormonisms,"
Mormon Studies Review: Vol. 6:
No.
1, Article 2.
Available at:
https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/msr2/vol6/iss1/2