Lehi had always favored his youngest and most exemplary son, Nephi, so it shouldn’t have surprised anybody when the old man bequeathed leadership of the tribe to him.* But this infuriated Nephi’s miscreant brother Laman, causing the tribe to split into two rival clans after Lehi’s passing: the righteous, fair-skinned Nephites, led by Nephi, and their bitter adversaries, the Lamanites, as the followers of Laman were known. The Lamanites were “an idle people, full of mischief and subtlety,” whose behavior was so annoying to God that He cursed the whole lot of them with dark skin to punish them
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