Here in his epistle, Moroni put together the two instances of Lamanite seizure: taking possession of the Nephites’ lands and carrying away their women and children. The original reading, however, is a difficult reading, which led the editors for the 1920 LDS edition to move the participial phrase “taking possession of our lands” away from the middle of Moroni’s list of Lamanite attacks upon the Nephite people. This is particularly helpful in resolving the pronominal reference for them in the following participial phrase “and also carrying them away captive”; clearly it is not the lands that are being carried away. Although the critical text will retain the more difficult, original sequencing, the 1920 emendation is appropriate for the standard text. 𝓞 is almost completely extant here, and the word order is established. It is very unlikely that Joseph Smith somehow mixed up the clausal order so radically as he dictated the text to Oliver Cowdery.
Elsewhere the text allows for considerable shifting in the referent for the third person plural pronouns, as in the following passage that involves three different referents:
The their refers to the Zoramites, they to the people of Ammon, and them to the Zoramite refugees. Even in Alma 60:17 one cannot be sure that the them in the present participial clause “and also carrying them away captive” refers to the women and children alone or more generally to the people mentioned earlier in the passage (“and they are murdering our people with the sword yea our women and our children … and also carrying them away captive”). Other passages describing Lamanite attacks against the Nephites shows that the pronoun them in Alma 60:17 probably refers to women and children:
Summary: Restore the original clausal order in Alma 60:17, where “taking possession of our lands” comes right before “and also carrying them away captive”.