Akish, the son of Kimnor, was a Jaredite who founded a secret combination, murdered his father-in-law King Jared to take the throne, and whose dynasty fell in a civil war that destroyed nearly all his people. When Omer’s son Jared lost the kingdom to his own brothers and grieved over it, Jared’s daughter proposed a plan to win it back: she would dance before Akish so that he would desire her to wife, and Jared would grant the marriage only if Akish brought him the head of Omer, the king (Ether 8:10-11).
To carry out the plot, Akish gathered his kinsfolk and bound them by oath to be faithful to him, swearing that anyone who betrayed his plans or revealed them would be killed; he administered the oaths handed down from Cain, forming a secret combination (Ether 8:14-18). Moroni interrupts the account to state that such combinations destroyed both the Jaredites and the Nephites, and to warn the Gentiles who would later receive the record against allowing them to take hold, since any nation that upholds them will be destroyed (Ether 8:22-26).
The combination overthrew Omer’s kingdom, but Omer was not killed: the Lord warned him in a dream, and he departed with his family to a place by the seashore called Ablom (Ether 9:1-3). Jared was then anointed king, gave his daughter to Akish in marriage, and Akish sought the life of his father-in-law; the men sworn to his oath beheaded Jared as he sat on his throne (Ether 9:4-5). Jared was murdered upon his throne and Akish reigned in his stead, then grew jealous of one of his sons and shut him in prison, keeping him with little or no food until he died (Ether 9:6-7).
Akish’s other sons drew away most of the people by offering them money, and war broke out between Akish and his sons. It lasted many years and destroyed nearly all the people of the kingdom, leaving only thirty survivors besides those who had fled with Omer’s household (Ether 9:11-12).