Abstract: This article examines two instances in the Book of Mormon in which captives escape through the negligence of drunken and sleeping guards. It suggests that details about the wine used to intoxicate the Lamanite guards in the city of Gid provide support for a candidate consumable, which, despite the impression the title may give, is not a piece of triple-chocolate cake, but is in fact an alcoholic drink brewed using cacao. The article briefly reviews the history of chocolate/cacao as it touches upon liberating captives from bondage and the use of deceptive practices in times of warfare. It briefly discusses the possibility of a Lamanite intelligence network driving some of the political events during the Lamanite wars narrated in the book of Alma.





Stories of jailbreaks tend to capture the imagination. Such accounts have become, for example, part of the lore of the American Wild West. The stereotype of the sleeping and drunk guard is only slightly more commonplace in film and literature than the even less likely tale in which a dog, monkey, or other animal companion steals the keys from the unwary and sleeping jailer. In such cases, as many as ten men escape at one time. However, absconding with hundreds or even thousands of men, women, and children, to say nothing of their flocks and herds, such as we find described in the Book of Mormon, would require a level of planning and execution much higher than the opportunistic snatching of keys from a sleeping jailer, even if the animals in question had been trained in such tactics.

This article will focus on two different stories in the Book of Mormon involving the escape of large groups of Nephite captives by way of [Page 220]their Lamanite guards falling asleep. There is also a third episode of the freeing of captives while the guards sleep: the story of Alma and his small flock of converts (Mosiah 24:18 –21). The focus of this story is on the faith of the people and the miraculous nature of their release. Though the other two stories also recount the actions of faithful people, and though divine inspiration may well have been involved in the development of the plans that resulted in the freedom of the captives, this article will focus on natural explanations rather than inexplicable miraculous interventions. As the story of Alma and the people of Helam gives almost no detail on the circumstances surrounding the release of the people and the failure of the Lamanites to be able to follow the trail of the hundreds of escapees and their flocks, it is not examined in this paper.

The two main accounts of Nephites escaping from their Lamanite guards record the Nephites getting their Lamanite guards drunk enough to all fall asleep—apparently every single guard—after indulging in an excess of Nephite wine. However, some details are difficult to understand with these accounts, and these details present challenging questions that beg for explanation. To do so, this paper will necessarily indulge in speculation: a proposal that the wine imbibed by the Lamanite guards of the city of Gid was a cacao-based drink and not a fruit-based wine, per se. This proposal, if correct, solves several of the difficulties of the narrative, including the volume of liquor required to incapacitate an entire garrison, the fact that the Lamanites were given wine as part of their military rations, and the indication that the wine used was usually intended to prepare the Lamanites for battle.

Sweet Deception

Perhaps the most dramatic of the two narratives discussed in this paper—narratives in which captives are delivered from the clutches of their sleeping guards—is the one that takes place in the city of Gid. In this story, found in Alma 55, while negotiating a prisoner exchange, Captain Moroni grew angry and broke off diplomatic negotiations with Ammoron, the king of the Lamanites. He then devised a risky plan to free the Nephite prisoners. His plan,