Question: Could Joseph Smith have acquired the names “Moroni” and “Cumorah” from stories he read as a youth, maps that he would have had access to, or other people within his local vicinity?

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Question: Could Joseph Smith have acquired the names “Moroni” and “Cumorah” from stories he read as a youth, maps that he would have had access to, or other people within his local vicinity?

Introduction to Questions

Critic Ronald V. Huggins in a 2003 Dialogue article entitled Dramatis Personae in the Book of Mormon defended a claim that Joseph Smith could have acquired the names “Moroni” and “Cumorah” from either maps he could have had access to, stories that he may have read associated with Captain William Kidd, or local Palmyra whalers that told stories of their journeys to places where Captain Kidd is also known to have operated.

The argument starts with the stories. Joseph is supposed to have read the stories of Captain Kidd and, inspired by Kidd’s exploits in the Comoros Archipelago off the coast of Mozambique, gone to maps to learn more about the area. On the maps, he would have found that the capital city of one of the islands in the archipelago is Moroni. Alternatively, he could have asked the local Palmyra whalers who were known to operate in the area of the archipelago and heard about their journey to Moroni potentially.

There are two places that Joseph Smith could have gotten the name “Moroni” and three places that he could have gotten “Cumorah” from according to these critics. For Moroni, the capital city of the island Grand Comore is Moroni. Also, there is an island named Anjouan in the Comoros and one of the port cities of that island is called Meroni. For the “Cumorah”, the islands are named the Comoros Islands and its largest island is called Grand Comore. Prior to French occupation in 1841, the Comoros Islands were called Camora.

Response to Question

No Evidence that Captain Kidd Stories contained the names Moroni, Meroni, Camora, nor Comoros

We need to start with the Captain Kidd Stories since, if Joseph Smith did not read the Captain Kidd stories, then he would not have had any motivation to seek for maps that had Moroni, Meroni, Camora, Comoros, or Comore on them.

References to Joseph Smith being interested in the adventures of Captain Kidd come from some of his contemporaries years after the publication of the Book of Mormon. For example, Pomeroy Tucker in his 1867 book Origin, rise, and progress of Mormonism (37 years after the Book of Mormon was published and 23 years after Joseph's death), portrayed the Smith family as an "illiterate, whiskey-drinking, shiftless, irreligious race of people" and Joseph Smith, Jr. as the "laziest and most worthless of the generation." Tucker offers this insight regarding the young Joseph Smith and Captain Kidd:

Joseph, moreover, as he grew in years, had learned to read comprehensively, in which qualification he was far in advance of his elder brother, and even of his father; and this talent was assiduously devoted, as he quitted or modified his idle habits, to the perusal of works of fiction and records of criminality, such for instance as would be classed with the "dime novels" of the present day. The stories of Stephen Burroughs and Captain Kidd, and the like, presented the highest charms for his expanding mental perceptions. As he further advanced in reading and knowledge, he assumed a spiritual or religious turn of mind, and frequently perused the Bible...

Noted here is that the first “dime novel” did not appear until 1860. See Wikipedia article "Dime novel" off-site

We would, of course, dispute Tucker's late portrayal of the Smith family as lazy and shiftless, as would the contemporaneous historical records (which are more reliable than late, hostile testimony obviously designed to discredit the Smiths).

However, knowing that Joseph was involved in treasure seeking, and that the great motivation for much of the treasure seeking being performed at the time was the result of a common belief that Captain Kidd had hidden treasure somewhere on the east coast of the United States, it is not unreasonable to assume that Joseph was familiar with the stories.

Critics more recently have tried to tie the stories to Joseph since Captain William Kidd is known to have operated in the vicinity of the Comoros archipelago. One author notes that "During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries the Comoros, and especially Anjouan, were popular as both a hunting ground and headquarters for Indian Ocean pirates."

• Ex-Mormon Grant Palmer asserts that Joseph Smith acquired the names "Cumorah" and "Moroni" by reading stories of Captain Kidd in his youth. Palmer concludes that it is "reasonable to assert that Joseph Smith's hill in the "land of Camorah" [Comorah/Cumorah], "city of Moroni," and "land of Moroni/Meroni," is connected with the ilhas [islands] de Comoro"/"Camora," the Moroni/Meroni settlements, and these pirate adventures.
• Critic Ronald V. Huggins asserts that Captain Kidd was "hanged for crimes allegedly committed in the vicinity of Moroni on Grand Comoro."

However, the primary inspiration for Captain Kidd stories and legends, Charles Johnson's 1724 book A General History of the Robberies and Murders of the Most Notorious Pirates, fails to mention the names "Comoro" and "Moroni/Meroni/Maroni" in conjunction with Kidd's exploits. It is the responsibility of those who make this claim to produce some sort of documentary evidence that these names existed in stories that were available to Joseph Smith. The book (General History) recounted the exploits of a number of well known pirates, including Captain Kidd. Johnson's book is said to have contributed to a number of fictionalized stories about Captain Kidd that became popular during Joseph Smith's time. However, the section of this book dealing with Captain Kidd offers little information regarding Comoro or Meroni. In fact, when referring to Kidd's interaction with the Comoros, it only refers to the individual islands by name without mentioning the name "Meroni" or "Maroni" at all. As an example from Johnson’s book:

It does not appear all this while that [Captain Kidd] had the least design of turning Pirate; for near Mahala and Joanna both he met with Indian ships richly laden, to which he did not offer the least violence.

So here we have a reference to Joanna or Anjouan, this has been claimed to be a "direct connection" to Meroni however it is hardly such.. The name "Joanna" refers to one of the islands in the Comoros Archipelago. In fact, "Joanna" (or "Johanna") is the island of Anjouan, upon which the anchorage "Meroni" is located. Charles Johnson's book, however, would not offer the reader one detail: the names "Comoro" and "Meroni" are never even mentioned. If Joseph Smith learned these names from fictional stories relating the tales of Captain Kidd recounted in novels inspired by Johnson's book, how would such stories even contain these names? Where is the "dime novel"? These questions need to be answered.

Kidd was hanged for the murder of his ship's gunner, William Moore, during a mutiny. Kidd was declared a pirate only after he seized the ship Quedah Merchant in 1698. This act occurred at sea in the vicinity of the Comoro archipelago, but the stories do not say that it was at "Moroni on Grand Comoro." None of these actions were related to the city of Moroni. The association of these events with "Moroni on Grand Comoro" is an unsupported assertion by Huggins, and these specific names have nothing to do with Kidd's execution. This seems to be a stretching attempt by Huggins to more closely tie Kidd's execution with Joseph Smith and Mormonism.

Already we have a huge wrench being thrown into the critics’ theories. But the theories become even more unworkable when considering the maps and gazateers that would have been available to Joseph Smith.

Maps Proximate to Joseph Smith do Not Contain the Names Moroni, Meroni, Comoros, Camora, or Grand Comore

When the facts are examined, the possibility of Joseph seeing Comoros and Moroni recedes; the idea becomes unworkable. The following gazetteers from Joseph's era were consulted:

Title	Relevant Contents
Mucullock's Universal Gazateer, 2 vols (1843-4)	2257 pages of double columned miniscule print, with no reference to Comoros Islands or Moroni.
Morris' Universal Gazateer (1821)	831 pages, no mention of Comoros or Moroni
Brookes Gazateer 1794 edition	Comora on p. 400, no mention of Moroni
1819 edition	Comora, no mention of Moroni
1835 edition	Comoro on p. 214, no mention of Moroni
1843 edition	Comoro, no mention of Moroni

There is no evidence that Joseph saw these maps, or any other, but if he had they would have provided little help.

Furthermore, it is unlikely that any source would have contained the name of "Moroni." That settlement did not become the capital city until 1876 (32 years after Joseph's death and 47 years after the publication of the Book of Mormon), when Sultan Sa'id Ali settled there. At that time it was only a small settlement. Even a century later, in 1958, its population was only 6500.

As previously noted, it is unlikely that any map of the Comoro Archiplego available to Joseph Smith would have contained the name of "Moroni." The capitol city of Moroni was unlikely to have been present on early maps of the Comoros Islands in the 1700's. However, the name "Meroni" actually did appear in a different location on one of the other Comoros Islands on maps dated to 1748, 1752 and 1755. The following 1748 map of the island of Anjouan (also known as Nzwani) has been noted by critics to contain the name "Meroni" or "Merone".

The following map of Anjouan, dated to 1748, also contains the name "Merone."

It is unlikely that Joseph would have seen this, since the name "Comoro" on maps always appears to be associated with the main island "Grande Comore", while the settlement of "Meroni" on Anjoun is too small to appear on such maps showing all four islands. For example, the following 1749 maps of the Comoros clearly labels the main island as "Comore," but the scale of the island of Anjouan obscures the names of any settlements there. In order for Joseph to obtain the name "Meroni" or "Merone" from Anjouan, he would have been required to consult the Anjouan map directly make this connection, since it lists the name "Comore" at the top.

Could Joseph Smith have gotten the names Moroni and Cumorah from local American whalers?

There is another speculation put forth non-Mormons regarding how Joseph Smith might have heard the names "Moroni" and "Cumorah" that is not related to Captain Kidd. The assumption made on one website is that he "heard about these exotic places from stories of American whalers." The website notes that "The Comoro islands were visited by a large number of American whaling ships beginning before the appearance of The Book of Mormon. Sailors aboard these ships, when they returned to the whaling ports of New England, told of their adventures in the western Indian Ocean and by the time The Book of Mormon first appeared in the 1820s, both Moroni and Comoro were words known to some Americans living in the eastern United States." One would have to assume, however, that Joseph came into contact with "some Americans living in the eastern United States" who were familiar with the names. Such a connection is simply pure conjecture.

On the other hand, the same website also provides a useful background on the meaning of the names:

It should be first noted that the word, 'moroni', has a meaning. The word is from the group of languages spoken in the Comoro Islands and found in Swahili, as well. Translating into English, it means "at the place of fire." It is constructed of the root 'moro,' which means "fire" or "heat" and the locative '-ni,' which has the meaning "at the place of". Thus, constructed from the morphemes of the local languages ‘Moroni’ reflects the fact that it is located at the base of one of the world’s largest active volcanos. It should also be noted that the name, 'Moroni', is found on European maps as early as the middle of the 18th century and noted by travelers as the capital of a Sultan on the island of Ngazidja. The name, 'Comoro', also has a similar meaning in the local languages. It is composed of an old Swahili locative 'ko-' and the word 'moro' meaning "the place of fire." This name has been around since ancient times and can be found on Arabic maps published over a thousand years ago.

Notes