Mormon is believed by members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to be a prophet-historian and a member of a tribe of indigenous Americans known as the Nephites, one of the four groups described in the Book of Mormon as having settled in the ancient Americas.

According to the Book of Mormon, the plates of Nephi, consisting of the large plates of Nephi and the small plates of Nephi, are a portion of the collection of inscribed metal plates which make up the record of the Nephites. This record was later abridged by Mormon and inscribed onto gold plates from which Joseph Smith translated the Book of Mormon after an angel revealed to him the location where the plates were buried on a hill called Cumorah near the town of Palmyra, New York.