Zeniff was a Nephite who led a colony from Zarahemla back to the land of Nephi and became its first king. Taught in the language of the Nephites and familiar with the land of Nephi, he was sent as a spy so the Nephite army could attack the Lamanites; seeing good among them, he did not want them destroyed (Mosiah 9:1). He argued for a treaty instead, but the expedition’s leader, an austere and blood-thirsty man, ordered him killed. In the resulting fight—father against father, brother against brother—most of the company died, and the few survivors, Zeniff among them, returned to Zarahemla (Mosiah 9:1-2).
Zeniff gathered a second group and went up again. He went in to the Lamanite king, who covenanted that Zeniff might possess the land of Lehi-Nephi and the land of Shilom, and commanded his own people to leave (Mosiah 9:6). The text states that the king yielded the land through cunning and craftiness, intending to bring Zeniff’s people into bondage (Mosiah 9:10); king Laman is named as that ruler (Mosiah 9:10).
As king, Zeniff had his people rebuild the city walls of Lehi-Nephi and Shilom, till the ground, and prosper. When the Lamanites attacked, he and his people went to battle in the strength of the Lord and drove them back (Mosiah 9:17; 10:10-11). In his record he set down the Lamanites’ traditions against the Nephites: that their fathers were wronged in the wilderness and at sea, that Nephi had wrongly taken the rule and the brass plates, and that they had taught their children an eternal hatred of Nephi’s descendants (Mosiah 10:12-17).
Zeniff conferred the kingdom on his son Noah, who did not walk in the ways of his father (Mosiah 11:1). A later generation under his grandson Limhi recalled that Zeniff, over-zealous to inherit the land of his fathers, had been deceived by king Laman’s treaty into bondage, leaving his people paying tribute to the Lamanites (Mosiah 7:21).