A popular argument among Great Lake theorists, is the Promised Land theory. The Book of Mormon states several times that the land which they were led to, was the “promised land”, or a “choice land”. According to The Book of Mormon, the Promised Land shall be a land of liberty, with no kings upon the land [1], and be discovered by a Gentile whom the Spirit of God wrought, to cross “many waters” [2] in order to find, among many others.
The “Gentile” who discovered the Americas is generally thought to be Christopher Columbus. In the 1879 Book of Mormon, Orson Pratt added the footnote to 1 Nephi 13:12 which named this “gentile” as Christopher Columbus. Columbus began writing a book called “Book of Prophecies” and in this book
“set forth views on himself as the fulfiller of biblical prophecies! Columbus saw himself as fulfilling the ‘islands of the sea’ passages from Isaiah and another group of verses concerning the conversion of the heathen. Watts reports that Columbus was preoccupied with ‘the final conversion of all races on the eve of the end of the world,’ paying particular attention to John 10:16: ‘And other sheep I have, which are not of this fold’ (see also 3 Nephi 16:3). He took his mission of spreading the gospel of Christ seriously. ‘made me the messenger of the new heaven and the new earth. . . . He showed me the spot where to find it,’ Columbus wrote in 1500.” [3]
As the scripture says, the Spirit led the gentile to the Promised land, the Spirit also led Columbus to the Americas.