Mormon’s final message was written to “the remnant of this people who are spared” (v. 1). At the end of his life, Mormon did not make a distinction between Nephite and Lamanite. To all who survived, he declared: “ye are a remnant of the seed of Jacob”—a covenant people, regardless of their more recent genealogy.
The possible nature of their more recent genealogies was clarified in a 2006 change made to the Introduction that had been added for the 1981 edition. The sentence which had read “all were destroyed except the Lamanites, and they are the principal ancestors of the American Indians,” became “… they are among the ancestors of the American Indians” (emphasis mine). While even the previous language accommodated the “others” whom the Lehites found when they reached the Americas, the change better reflects the already populated land reached by this handful of Old World immigrants whose history and undying testimony is contained in the Book of Mormon.
Text: This is the end of a chapter and of Mormon’s intended text.