Mormon theology reclassified Native Americans as descendants of Israel’s lost tribes

Evidence

In 1820, Joseph Smith, who was to become the Mormons’ prophet, claimed to have received a revelation that Protestants had misunderstood previous Christian revelations. In 1830, Smith translated writings on golden plates that he claimed were inscribed with religious truths. The writings became the Book of Mormon, which Smith characterized as a religious history of the indigenous people of the Americas. Smith believed Mormons would build the city of Zion in the Americas as the biblical New Jerusalem. He preached that Native Americans were descendants of the ten lost tribes of Israel, thereby legitimating intermarriage between Mormons and Native Americans. — Sahar F. Aziz, The Racial Muslim, 316

Categorization

• XREF: The invented-racial-origin motif echoes how other new religions narrative indigeneity; connects to worldbuilding of fabricated sacred histories.