Nephites

In the Book of Mormon, the Nephites () are one of four groups (along with the Lamanites, Jaredites, and Mulekites) said to have settled in the ancient Americas. The term is used throughout the Book of Mormon to describe the religious, political, and cultural traditions of the group of settlers. The Nephites are described as a group of people that descended from or were associated with Nephi, a son of the prophet Lehi, who left Jerusalem at the urging of God in about 600 BC and traveled with his family to the Western Hemisphere and arrived to the Americas in about 589 BC. The Book of Mormon notes them as initially righteous people who eventually "had fallen into a state of unbelief and awful wickedness" and were destroyed by the Lamanites in about AD 385. Some Mormon scholars have suggested that the Nephites settled somewhere in present-day Central America. However, non-Mormon scholars and, notably, the Smithsonian Institution, have stated that they have seen no evidence to support the Book of Mormon as a historical account.