American Indians: Church History Topics Essay, part 2

Paper cutouts of Lamanites (on the left) and Nephites (on the right) for Mormon children

O stop and tell me, Red Man,
Who are ye? Why you roam?
And how you get your living?
Have you no God;— no home?
-"O stop and tell me, Red Man"
​Mormon Hymn by W. W. Phelps (1834)

“The early Saints believed that all American Indians were the descendants of Book of Mormon peoples, and that they shared a covenant heritage connecting them to ancient Israel. They often held the same prejudices toward Indians shared by other European Americans, but Latter-day Saints believed Native Americans were heirs to God’s promises even though they now suffered for once having rejected the gospel. This belief instilled in the early Saints a deeply felt obligation to bring the message of the Book of Mormon to American Indians.” - lds.org "American Indians."

This paragraph attempts to frame early Mormons white-settler-supremacist attitude as based on good intentions, or at least as the lesser of two evil settler-cultures. But the fact that Mormons saw (see) Indigenous peoples and their cultures as fallen versions of their supposedly original culture, Mormonism, negates any good intentions they may have imagined themselves to have. 

This form of white-saviorism is called “paternalism” and even though it is often seen as the lesser of two evils. But the lesser of two evils is often “the more effective of two evils.”

“Paternalism is action that limits a person's or group's liberty or autonomy and is intended to promote their own good. Paternalism can also imply that the behavior is against or regardless of the will of a person, or also that the behavior expresses an attitude of superiority.”

"Settler colonialism destroys to replace." - Patrick Wolfe

Mormonism destroys Indigeneity & replaces it with the white-Israeli-settler / cursed-Lamanite identity. The fabrication of the Lamanite identity and the application of that identity onto Indigenous peoples through this “obligation” to save them from their divine suffering through conversion are forms of cultural genocide. 
They “Kill the Indian” in an attempt to “save the Mormon.” 

Something else I want to share on this section of the essay is the Indian-fetish / anti-Indigenous position of the Lamanite identity.

This intersection of:
—Indian-fetishism (seeing Lamanites as descendants of a “chosen people”)
—and anti-Indigeneity (seeing Lamanites as “cursed” and practicing a fallen version of their supposedly original culture, Mormonism)
—operates to allow Mormons to see their white-settler-supremacist, genocidal attitudes toward Indigenous persons as generosity, divine duty, “obligation,” and for the good of Indigenous Peoples.

They get to maintain their myths of innocence and destroy Indigenous culture and lives simultaneously.
Have their settler cake and eat it too.

This is “nice-whiteness," white-saviorism, paternalism & violence

Destroying Indigenous cultures is genocide.
As Patrick Wolfe writes, “In practice, it should go without saying that … “cultural genocide” is certainly going to have a direct impact on that people’s capacity to stay alive.”