“The Lord took every precaution to see that nothing might interfere with this posterity of Joseph in working out their God-given destiny and the destiny of America. He provided, and so told Lehi at the very beginning of his settlement, that… it is wisdom that this land should be kept as yet from the knowledge of other nations; for behold, many nations would overrun the land, that there would be no place for an inheritance (2 Nephi 1:8).

[NOTE: The reality is, the continent had been occupied for 30,000 years – there were millions of inhabitants].

“The Lord so kept the land for a thousand years after Lehi landed. He so kept it in His wisdom for another thousand years after the Nephites were destroyed, perhaps to give the Lamanitish branch another chance.”

J. Reuben Clark, The Improvement Era, “Prophecies, Penalties, and Blessings” (Salt Lake City, UT: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, July 1940), 441.