How large can this community be? Not very big unless—as many people now believe—they had begun to interact and mix with indigenous peoples. After all, why else would you need gold and silver, unless you are trading with other people for commodities that are now precious and valuable? Similarly, the only reason that many early pioneers in Utah wanted to have gold is so they could buy things that they could import from people coming across the Oregon Trail.
Book of Mormon Central, "Did ‘Others’ Influence Book of Mormon Peoples? (Jacob 3:13)," KnoWhy 435 (May 22, 2018).