We cannot understand this period in Nephite history. It is a mystery. It may be likened to a night of horror. Its whole nature is but a composite of crime and cruelty. In the darkness thereof we are not surprised to find the plans of the evil one enmeshed with those of his servants. In addition to its blackness, this lightless season was a prolific progenitress. Its evil offspring were those of which we may imagine the devil and his servants were the legitimate parents. He was their sire; they were his children, his issue, his fruit. Robbery, rapine, and murder, were the midwives who assisted in their birth.
The greatest evil which this night brought forth was a resurgence of the Gadianton band of robbers; a conspiring group of murderers and plunderers who were first bought together by Kishkumen and one, Gadianton, over sixty years before. (Helaman Chapters 2 and 6) The degrading influences of this organic structure appealed to many Nephites who saw in it a sure way to gain wealth without effort. Its leaders taught its carnally-minded adherents to steal, plunder, commit whoredoms and murder, at will; not stopping at any manner of wickedness.
Only thirteen years had passed since the signs of the Savior's birth had been given, yet in this year the robbers had become so numerous that armed conflict with them almost overwhelmed the whole nation. In their vile endeavors to get riches that were not theirs, they "did slay so many of the people, and did lay waste so many cities, and did spread so much death and carnage throughout the land" that it was necessary that both Nephites and Lamanites should unite in mutual defense even to "take up arms against them."
For that purpose, and for that alone, the Christian believers of both peoples threw their lots together, but in spite of each other's help, reciprocally given and received, "the Nephites were threatened with utter destruction because of this war, which had become exceedingly sore."