Out of all the evil men in the Book of Mormon, Amalickiah is one of the most terrifying. When I was a child, the simple, clear-cut wickedness of other villains like King Noah or Laban was much easier to understand. But as I grew in years and understanding, I came to appreciate why Mormon, in his work abridging centuries’ worth of records, thought it wise to dedicate such a large part of the precious space he had to a small window of Nephite history.

Amalickiah was a Nephite traitor, kingslayer, and usurper to the Lamanite throne. He was a sociopath whose favorite tools were flattery, agitprop, and murder. Amalickiah indiscriminately employed assassination to remove obstacles to his power and advance himself. A warmonger, he was an expert at inflaming the passions of others and convincing them to kill others. He employed this gift extensively, paying no heed to the human cost, or to the cost to his own soul, in an endless pursuit of power.
When he tried and failed to establish himself as king of the Nephites, he defected to the Lamanite nation. There, through a series of treacherous actions—flattery, murder, culminating in regicide—Amalickiah managed to elevate himself to the Lamanite throne. He mobilized his kingdom to make war against his nation of birth in an attempt to subjugate them as well. His unbridled, unchecked ambition and evil methods were the cause of thousands of deaths across the two nations, eventually including his own.
“A Man of Many Flattering Words”
“I have no spur
Macbeth, Act 1, Scene 7
To prick the sides of my intent, but only
Vaulting ambition, which o’erleaps itself
And falls on th’other”
Even before we learn his name, we are told that he intended to murder Helaman, then the high priest of the church. He was described as a “large and strong man.” He was charismatic, of “cunning device and a man of many flattering words,” with a great talent for stirring people up to violence and filling hearts with hate. He managed to flatter the people, dangling promises in front of them in exchange for their support.
His first appearance in the Book of Alma immediately paints a vivid picture of him and his motivations. He rose to prominence in the power vacuum that took place after Alma passed the mantle of high priest to his son Helaman. Alma had been the last Nephite to simultaneously hold both the political power of chief judgeship while also being high priest. When Helaman became high priest, while he had influence over the church, he officially held no political power.
Amalickiah was displeased with the reforms that Helaman had enacted through the church and sought to kill him. He wanted to destroy the fledgling Nephite “proto-democracy” and re-establish the Nephite monarchy, with himself as king. He managed to flatter many with his words and began to gather support for his cause.
At this point, Captain Moroni, “chief commander of the armies of the Nephites,” became rightfully angry. Rallying the Nephites against Amalickiah, he urged them to defend their freedom, calling on them to remember “God, our religion, and freedom, and our peace, our wives, and our children.”
Seeing that the overwhelming majority of the Nephites supported the Title of Liberty and the cause of freedom, Amalickiah feared for his life. Gathering whatever supporters he could, he left the Nephites to seek support elsewhere. Wary of Amalickiah joining forces with other enemies of the Nephites, Moroni sent an army after them, who managed to capture the bulk of Amalickiah’s supporters before they could cross over into Lamanite territory. However, Amalickiah himself and a small group of his followers managed to evade Moroni’s forces, and escaped to the land southward.
King of the Lamanites
“Why do I yield to that suggestion
Macbeth, Act 1, Scene 3
Whose horrid image doth unfix my hair,
And make my seated heart knock at my ribs,
Against the use of nature?”
Once Amalickiah arrived in Lamanite lands, he began to spread his poison immediately. Through flattery, Amalickiah managed to convince the Lamanite king to raise an army and attack the Nephites.
However, a significant part of the Lamanites were “fixed in their minds with a determined resolution that they would not be subjected to go against the Nephites” (Alma 47:6). The king “gave Amalickiah the command of that part of his army which was obedient unto his commands,” and sent him to compel the anti-war faction to arms.
This was just the opportunity Amalickiah was waiting for. He took command of the loyalist faction, marched on the breakaway faction, and tried to curry favor with Lehonti, their newly appointed king. He made him an offer he would merge his forces with Lehonti’s forces, in return for becoming second in command of their new combined army.
Lehonti took his offer and they began to lead the army to march on the capital and depose the king. During the march, Amalickiah poisoned Lehonti, securing his position as commander of the entire Lamanite army.
Without any knowledge of Amalickiah’s treachery, the King welcomed him, no doubt pleased with the large army that Amalickiah had apparently raised for him. However, Amalickiah has the king assassinated, then frames the King’s own servants for the murder.
To strengthen his legitimacy as monarch, Amalickiah “sought the favor of the queen, and took her unto him to wife.” With this marriage, Amalickiah consolidated his power, becoming acknowledged king throughout all Lamanites territories, by Lamanites, Ishmaelites, and territories controlled by Nephite dissenters.
Attack on the Nephites
“To be thus is nothing
Macbeth, Act 3 Scene 1
but to be safely thus”
As soon as Amalickiah secured the Lamanite throne, he immediately appointed propagandists to “speak unto the Lamanites from their towers,” inflaming the populace, preparing a way to justify a full-scale invasion of the Nephite nation. He managed to stir the Lamanites in anger, raise an army, and send that army to attack the Nephites.
At this point, Mormon takes us to the Nephite nation. Chapter 48 presents Captain Moroni as a perfect antithesis to Amalickiah, the Yang to his Yin. While Amalickiah was bloodthirsty and murderous, Moroni “did not delight in bloodshed.” Where Amalickiah was determined to “overpower the Nephites and to bring them into bondage,” Moroni was “a man whose soul did joy in the liberty and the freedom of his country.”
In the years after Amalickiah’s defection, Moroni had led a concerted effort to fortify the Nephite cities. The commanders of the invading force were “exceedingly astonished” at the preparations. They were forced to forego their primary target, the city of Ammonihah, and instead marched towards the land of Noah, a secondary objective which they expected to be weak, only to discover that what had previously been a chink in the Nephite territorial defense was heavily fortified, “even to exceed the strength of the city Ammonihah.”
The commanders of the Lamanite army knew they were at a severe disadvantage; however, they had sworn oaths to attack the city, and so they did, incurring more than a thousand casualties, while “not a single soul of the Nephites which was slain.” All chief captains of the Lamanites were killed, and the remnants of their army fled into the wilderness and returned to their own country.
King Amalickiah was filled with rage when he learned of his defeat, and “he did curse God, and also Moroni, swearing with an oath that he would drink his blood.”
Moroni continued to fortify the Nephite lands. Of the period of peace that followed, Mormon declared that there “never was a happier time among the people of Nephi.”
Second Campaign
“For mine own good
Macbeth Act 3, Scene 4
All causes shall give way. I am in blood
Stepped in so far that, should I wade no more,
Returning were as tedious as go o’er.”
About fifteen years after the failure of his first campaign, Amalickiah once again began to stir up the Lamanites to anger against the Nephites. He raised an army and began to attack them once again. This time, he decided to personally lead the invading force; he was determined not to repeat the mistakes of the first invasion.
Amalickiah found some initial success, and managed to capture and hold several Nephite cities “on the east borders by the seashore.” However they were eventually routed by a Nephite army, led by a captain named Teancum. Teancum’s forces put a stop to their march and drove the Lamanites back to the sea. Retreating from the Nephites, Amalickiah and his army set up camp on the borders by the seashore.
After a particularly tiring day of fighting, the Lamanites army retired to their camp, exhausted. With the bulk of the army fast asleep from fatigue, the Nephite captain made his move. Under the cover of darkness, Teancum personally infiltrated the Lamanite camp, located Amalickiah’s tent, and put a javelin through his heart.
Death
“…Out, out, brief candle!
Macbeth, Act 5, Scene 5
Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more: it is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.”
And so it was, on New Year’s Eve, on the final day of the twenty-fifth year of the reign of the judges, at the tip of Teancum’s spear, “thus ended the days of Amalickiah.”

And not a day too soon it was. In the span of his short lifetime, he managed to ignite multiple wars, both between nations and within; pit brother against brother, kill the king of the Lamanites; and bring the democratic institutions of the Nephites to the brink of failure; all to fill his unquenchable thirst for power.
The complex machinations and pure evil perpetrated by men like Amalickiah are a poison that will bring even the proudest nations to ruin. It is truly the Amalickiahs of the world that we need to watch out for. They will rip our world apart if we allow them. “Yea, and we also see the great wickedness one very wicked man can cause to take place among the children of men.”