The offer of the Nephites to the Ammonites sounds very much like a combination of the offer of king Laman to Zeniff (clearing out a land for their inheritance) and the restriction of his son on Limhi and Alma (setting armies around the land and requiring for for the maintenance of those armies). One is recorded a bondage and the other as protection. The fact is that the Lamanites may have spoken of their guarding of the land as being a protection against unknown enemies and that some Nephites may have agreed to allow the Ammonites into Jetson on those conditions partly because they felt it would be a way to enslave some Lamanites.
Alma went from recording history to recording his private thoughts. I’m sure that wasn’t particularly unusual but in this case Mormon thought those private thoughts belonged among the sacred records that would be preserved.
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