Alma 48:8
1830 Edition
yea, he had been strengthening the armies of the Nephites, and erecting small forts, or places of resort; throwing up banks of earth round about, to enclose his armies, and also building walls of stone to encircle them about, round about their cities, and the borders of their lands; yea, all round about the land;
Changes
Simple English
He had been making the Nephite armies stronger. He built small forts where they could go for safety. He threw up piles of dirt around the armies. He also built stone walls around them. He did this around their cities and along the borders of their lands. He did this all around the land.
Paraphrase
He’d been building up the Nephite armies and constructing small forts and defensive positions. He threw up earthen walls around his forces and built stone barriers to circle their cities and protect their borders—all around the land.
Notes
"While it is often assumed that very little was known about the Native Americans and ancient ruins during the early 1800's, there actually was considerable interest in Indian culture and artifacts resulting in several books and newspaper articles. A number of books were printed before the Book of Mormon proposing that the American Indians were descended from Israel-the very idea put forward in the Book of Mormon. In 1652 Menasseh Ben Israel's Hope of Israel was published in England. This Jewish rabbi was a firm believer that remnants of the ten tribes of Israel had been discovered in the Americas. In 1775, James Adair published The History of the American Indians. He theorized that there were twenty-three parallels between Indian and Jewish customs. For example, he claimed the Indians spoke a corrupt form of Hebrew, honored the Jewish Sabbath, performed circumcision, and offered animal sacrifice. He discussed various theories explaining Indian origins, problems of transoceanic crossing, and the theory that the mound builders were a white group more advanced than the Indians." -Jerald and Sandra Tanner, Joseph Smith's Plagiarism of the Bible in the Book of Mormon, p. 244.
Adair wrote, "We frequently met with great mounds of earth, either of a circular, or oblong form, having a strong breast-work at a distance around them, made of the clay which had been dug up in forming the ditch on the inner side of the inclosed ground, and these were their forts of security against an enemy... About 12 miles from the upper northern parts of the Choktah country, there stand... two oblong mounds of earth... in an equal direction with each other... A broad deep ditch inclosed those two fortresses, and there they raised an high breast-work, to secure their houses from the invading enemy. -James Adair, The History of the American Indians (London: Edward & Charles Dilly, 1775), pp. 377-78.
It appears that the author(s) of the Book of Mormon were familiar with the same concepts and verbiage as Adair and other authors of the time. For example, similar descriptions of Indian forts, mounds and ditches in The History of the American Indians can be found in Alma 48:8-there are descriptions of small forts and throwing up banks of earth round about to enclose; Alma 50:10 refers to erected fortifications to secure their armies against the hands of their enemies; and Alma 53:4 describes a breastwork and the inner bank of the ditch.