A couple of tidbits from chapter 4 of the book of Mormon in the Book of Mormon.

v. 14 And [the Lamanites] did also march forward against the city Teancum, and did drive the inhabitants forth out of her, and did take many prisoners both women and children, and did offer them up as sacrifices unto their idol gods.
. . . .
v. 21 . . . their women and their children were again sacrificed unto idols.

If we read the Book of Mormon like we normally read historical texts, we’d treat this as atrocity propaganda and likely untrue or exaggerated. Though my sense is that the history profession is coming back around to the view that just because people say nasty things about their enemies doesn’t mean they are untrue.

We know that the Aztecs practiced mass human sacrifice, and they were Meso-American like we assume the Book of Mormon was, but big gaps of time and space separate the Aztecs from the presumed Book of Mormon setting. Its worth noting that Mormon doesn’t claim to have personally witnessed these atrocities. It’s also worth noting that the verse 14 reference to idol sacrifice not only paints the Lamanites as horribly wicked and the Nephites’ punishment for abandoning God as severe, but also provides an explanation in v. 15 for why the Nephites were able to win a military victory even though God was no longer on their side.

And it came to pass that in the three hundred and sixty and seventh year, the Nephites being angry because the Lamanites had sacrificed their women and their children, that they did go against the Lamanites with exceedingly great anger, insomuch that they did beat again the Lamanites, and drive them out of their lands.

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Here’s another curious verse:

v.22 And it came to pass that the Nephites did again flee from before them, taking all the inhabitants with them, both in towns and villages.

I’m sure I’m not the first person to notice that this verse strongly implies that “the Nephites” and “the inhabitants” were two separate groups. Its the same sort of weird picture you get in Alma, where Nephite cities spring up out of the wilderness. Several speculate that this is because the “wilderness” was already inhabited with towns and villages and the Nephites just grouped inhabitants together and gave them a Nephite identity.

If the Lamanites were better at assimilating their “inhabitants,” this may go part way to both explaining the numerical superiority they always seemed to enjoy and the Nephite feeling that they were uncivilized savages.

V.22 also strongly reminds me of the Mfecane, where tribes fleeing the Zulus literally killed or uprooted and assimilated everyone in their path. If we accept all the horror stories told by Mormon, we are still not looking at a historically unprecedented situation.