Many do, but there have been apostles and prophets who have taught that the descendant of the people of the Book of Mormon may not have been the only ancestors of the indigenous peoples of the Americas. Many modern LDS scholars also claim that Book of Mormon people were not the only inhabitants of the Americas at the time. So, in a short answer, some believe all people indigenous to the Americas are descended from those in the Book of Mormon, while others believe they are descended from a mixture of ancient peoples.

Joseph Smith sent Oliver Cowdery to preach to Indians, saying: "And now, behold, I say unto you that you shall go unto the Lamanites and preach my gospel unto them..." (Doctrine Covenants 28:8). In D&C 32:3 Joseph Smith said (again, speaking as god): "And that which I have appointed unto him is that he [Parley P. Pratt] shall go with my servants Oliver Cowdery and Peter Whitmer, Jun., into the wilderness among the Lamanites." Clearly, Joseph Smith presented the Indian population as Lamanites--or descendants of Jews. These are only two of numerable examples over the years of the Mormon prophets referring to Native Americans as Lamanites. The universality of that doctrine is reflected in the name of the BYU Native American dance troupe called Lamanite Generation. [Response to Kim]: Joseph Smith was the prophet. You'd think that he'd know. Also, the Doctrine and Covenants is supposed to represent the voice of God speaking through Joseph Smith, the prophet. Those were revelations.

Yes partially. Several groups left the ancient land to come to America, then the Promised Land, recorded in the Nephite record. Descendants of the tribes of Joseph loins Ephraim and Manasseh came in Lehi's group--not considered Jews. The tribe of Judah and Benjamin make up what we call the Jewish Stock (before the 4th century European conversion of Anglos to the Jewish faith). Mulekites, another group who was lead to the Americas, came from the tribe of Judah according to the record and eventually mixed with the Nephites--mixing the tribes of Joseph and Judah. During the several centuries of peace in the land of Nephi, the Lamanites and Nephites mixed together. There were no form of -ites in the land according to the Book of Mormon. As the years progressed, a group of the upcoming generations followed other beliefs than their parents and did not believe in the religion Jesus Christ took to the Nephites during his visitations. There began to be classes and churches in abundance. Then one group decided they would take upon themselves the name of Lamanites. It was not by descent, but by choice. 300 years had passed without those racial identities. The Nephites and Lamanites mingled and made a new race. From this new race came the Lamanites, a mixture of all who are mentioned in the Book of Mormon. This mixture, the new Lamanites, is principally the ancestors of the Native Americans. I submit the lineage given to the wicked was a spiritual lineage. The physical lineage ceased to exist centuries before. The followers of Christ were called Nephites. The deniers of him were called Lamanites in the end. http://scriptures.lds.org/4_ne/1

Only partially. Native Americans come from several lines: Ephraim, Manasseh, Judah (the Jews) and any other groups that came to the American continent that we don't know of. We do however know of Ephraim, Manasseh, and Judah. How this happened: Ephraim and Manasseh: Lehi was a prophet contemporary with Jeremiah. We have no reference to him in the Bible. One reason we do not have records of Lehi is because we know he took them with him when he left. Secondly, there were quite a few prophets around this time. We know at least Jeremiah, Zepahniah, Obadiah, Huldah, and Nahum. Josiah, the king, from 640 to 609, completed an utter religious reformation. He wiped out all idolatry as completely as he could and restored the temple. This led to a high level of prophets to teach the people during this time of religious prosperity. However, after Josiah, the king, died, his son took over. He didn't exactly take after his father in his religious zeal. With the king's lack of religious zeal, the people's religiousness also fell sharply. Very sharply. In a matter of a few years, this large number of prophets who had taught the people so much now had to try to bring them back to being righteous. Lehi was one of them. However, there were a large number so we do not know names of all of them or exactly how many there were. Lehi was a descendent of Manasseh. He was living in Jerusalem though. When the northern kingdom of Israel was captured by the Assyrians, many Israelites fled. Some went north, but a few jumped the border into the kingdom of Judah. The tribes of Manasseh and Ephraim could do this pretty easily since they already lived near the border next to Jerusalem. Sometime just before or during the Assyrian captivity, one of Lehi's forefathers probably jumped the border to escape. From this, later comes Lehi, a prophet, living in Jerusalem. In 600 BC, the Lord warns Lehi to get out of there because He's about to destroy Jerusalem (He does in 587 BC, 13 years later). That's good enough for Lehi so he takes his family and another family with him. This second family is the family of Ishmael. Not the famous Ishmael but another. Ishmael is a good righteous man of the lineage of Ephraim and has quite a few sons and daughters. Lehi does too. Lehi also knows that where they are going there will be no people so unless he wants his sons to marry his own daughters, he needs to find wives for his sons and husbands for his daughters. This is where Ishmael and his family come in. They intermarry and have kids. Thus we have a mixture of the blood of Ephraim (from Ishmael and his kids) and the blood of Manasseh (form Lehi and his kids) Then the Lord leads them to the sea and they set sail. They have no clue where they are going except that this will be a land of promise for them. They end up in South America. This is the largest group. The other group isn't as large, and most of that group end up dead so you won't see too much resemblence between the Semitic and Native American people. Rather you see more of a resemblance to Ephraim and Manasseh which explains a lot of the lineage of Manasseh now being found among Native Americans and Latinos (a lot of which have some Native American blood). (By the way, if Latino is not the politically correct term, I deeply apologize. I wasn't sure.) The second group: Judah Zoram and Mulek This line comes from two groups, but neither is very large. Zoram was another man who came over with Lehi, Ismael, and their families. I actually don't know Zoram's ancestry. It's very possible he was not of the line of Judah, but the circumstances would suggest he was. Remember though I truly don't know. Either way though it really doesn't matter too much because he married into the Ismael/ Lehi mix so they far outnumbered him so the Judah blood wasn't very strong in this group. Also it appears that most of his descendents eventually died so even less of the Judah blood remained for current Native Americans. Mulek Mulek was one of the sons of king Zedekiah, the king of Judah. In 587BC, the kingdom was overrun by the Babylonians. Mulek and a few of his friends ran. They managed to escape with their lives which was more than the other sons of Zedekiah. They continued their escape by boat. They built several boats probably along the Mediterranean near what is now the Gaza strip. They took off and landed in North America along the east coast. Think Jamestown, Virginia. They probably used similar trade winds and ended up near the same area though possibly a little further south (North Carolina). This group didn't do as well as the other group. They didn't bring any records with them because they fled so fast and probably didn't endure the first few winters too well in this new strange land. Those who survived were too concerned with survival in the next winters to really be concerned about their written language and after the first generation died off, they lost it altogether. They only had a spoken language. This group though later found the Lehi/Ismael group, and they joined as well. I doubt there are too many descendents left of this group, but I do believe there are some simply due to the intermarriages. Most of this group died out in war (Nephites vs. the Lamanites). Although these technically could be called tribes, it was far more than simple tribal warfare. Over a million people died, and one entire civilization were destroyed by another. Thus of what lineage are Native Americans? Mainly Ephraim and Manasseh. Some Judah. Possibly other bloodlines could be in there if Lehi and Ismael weren't pure blooded Ephraim and Manasseh or if Zoram wasn't actually of Judah. You'll notice that current Native Americans and Jews do not look much alike or have many genetic similarities. No, try more of Ephraim and Manasseh, add a dash of other lines, skin pigmentation to account climate differences, and several thousand years of dominant and recessive genes mixed with little quirks here and there, and you will end up with the miracle of the Native American lineage (along with a lot of Pacific island nations too).

"Do Mormons believe the Native Americans to be descendents of Jews?" ... Yes, they do! The DNA evidence, however, demonstrates this claim to be false. Here is a VERY interesting documentary on this subject. Thank you.

WE, American Aboriginals do not believe that we descendents of Jews. We think it`s preposterous. Most of just laugh about it. Those mormons can think what their cult dictates.

I do believe that some native americans have had descendents come over from Jeruselum,yes! No one knows whom all made it over here to the Americas, but it did happen, not ALL Native Americans came from Asia, some did, some did not.

Yes they do and they are wrong, DNA evidence proves the American Indian's came from Asian descent. But someone will say that is misinterpreted or something, they will defend all the facts in front of them because LDS members are either brainwashed or they have too much to loose in the church to believe it is false.

e Avenger": None of the research you cite specifically demonstrates or supports the conclusion that there is any link between native Americans and ancient Jews. There is no such link and there is no scientific research to specifcally support such a conclusion. The "Book of Mormon" is a fictional work written by Joseph Smith and the historical claims within it, such as a supposed link between ancient Jews and Indians, are false and without any meaningful foundation in fact. If you wish to believe the book Smith wrote you may, but don't make historical claims based upon fiction.

I dont know but I do know that DNA evidence has concluded that we Native Americans are direct descendants of the asian culture. We migrateed some 10,000 years ago over a land bridge that once stretched from alaska to mongolia. We did NOT come from jewish anything, there is not one IOTA of scientific proof that supports that inane theory.

My son is taking a history high school class from BYU and it says that "there is NO EVIDENCE" that Native Americans have always existed in the Americas but admit it is a theory, and goes on to say that Native Americans were probably descendants from Jews (Israel). This is also how you must answer to pass the test. The opposite is actually true. There is no evidence that Native Americans came from Israel and there is a ton of evidence that an indigenous group evolved in culture on the American continent. Published by Dr Mary E Pohl of Florida State University (an Archeologist expert of Meso America) has stated that the Native Americans are indigenous in language, writing a culture and in no way have any Israel or Jewish ancestry. Which can also be proven by DNA (which has been sampled all across North and South America with a conclusive result). There is no way that a population the size mentioned in the BofM that could write "Hebrew Egyptian" and not be detected in the writings and linguistics of Native Americans. It is 100% absent. The Reorganized LDS Church has admitted that the BofM was never to be taken literally and was nothing but a spiritual revelation not to be confused with real history. I applaud their forth right correctness. The Native Americans are quite upset that the stubborn SLC Mormons continue to superimpose a false history when every University in the World knows and teaches that Native Americans are indigenous to America, yet BYU's religious agenda keeps disrespecting their culture and lineage.

I am not going to give the same history that has been given concerning the book of Mormon and which Tribes were represented, except to say I agree with what has been said by other LDS posters here. But I will add some new information that has just been discovered by Scientists,(non-Mormon) about the Native Americans here in the Americas. The former DNA tests which were done have now been proven to be completely untrue! Non-Mormon Scientists have recently discovered a new strain of DNA, among the Native American Indians, here in United States. They call this new strain Haplogroup x2. And they have found, after testing different groups all over the world, that this particular strain is ONLY found in two specific areas. 1.Among the Native American Indians found ONLY here in United States. 2.In Europe, primarily in Israel,Belgium,Italy and a couple of other European countries. There was not one case found in all of Asia, or in Central or South America, nor in any other country, except in the South Eastern portion of Canada, around the Great Lakes area. That means Joseph Smith was right! Several revelations found in the D&C, from the Lord, tells of the lands of the Book of Mormon. The Lord describes those lands as being in Ohio, Missouri, Illinois, Far West, and all the way to New York, around the Great Lakes, including Cumorah and beyond, into Canada. This DNA testing was done exclusively by non-Mormon Scientists. And the conclusions they came too were their own. Some of our own people just happen to come across their findings. Does this prove the Book of Mormon is true? No, it is still a spiritual book and can only be proven by spiritual means. Just thought you might like to know...Later

Oy vey! You betcha sweet bippy! . ;-) . Shalom!

The idea that all indigenous Americans are the descendants of Jews who arrived in the Americas about 2,600 years ago is STILL official Mormon (LDS) teaching. That doesn't mean that all Mormons believe that, or even that most Mormons believe that.

They used to. I remember as a small child the Mormon missionaries coming to the rez and always trying to engage grandpa or grandma in conversation in Hebrew. They never seemed to believe that the old folks didn't understand them 1/22

Some were, but not all.

Catholics are decedents of Jews. I don't see what is wrong with that.

I've read a "recent" news article on this. ("Recent" - less than two years old.) "Recently" the LDS President confirmed in a public speech that the aboriginal Americans were the descendants of Jews. Note that the LDS President is considered a prophet by LDS members, and so such a statement verifies what we might call "current official LDS Mormon doctrine". *** That being said: certainly not all Mormons believe that. In my (obviously limited) experience Mormons - even more than other Christian denominations - tend to adopt religious doctrines "cafeteria style". They believe the religious teachings that they want to believe and ignore the religious teachings that they do not want to believe.