The people of Jacob were a Nephite faction, around 29-30 B.C., who placed an apostate named Jacob4 at their head and called him their king. They grew out of the secret combination that had murdered the chief judge and destroyed the government, dividing the land into tribes; Jacob4 was one of the chiefest who had spoken against the prophets who testified of Jesus. Being fewer in number than the united tribes, he commanded his people to flee to the northernmost part of the land to build up a kingdom there and wait for dissenters to join them, and they did so (3 Nephi 7:9-14).
They settled in the city Jacobugath. At the death of Jesus Christ the voice of the Lord declared that he had caused Jacobugath, inhabited by the people of king Jacob, to be burned with fire because of their sins and wickedness, which was above all the wickedness of the whole earth, on account of their secret murders and combinations, because they had destroyed the peace and the government of the land, so that the blood of the prophets and saints would not come up against them any more (3 Nephi 9:9).