The Doctrine of Discovery

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Landing of Columbus, John Vanderlyn, 1847. Courtesy Architect of the Capitol."To invade, search out, capture, vanquish, and subdue all Saracens and pagans whatsoever, and other enemies of Christ wheresoever placed, and the kingdoms, dukedoms, principalities, dominions, possessions, and all movable and immovable goods whatsoever held and possessed by them and to reduce their persons to perpetual slavery."

From the Romanis Pontifex by Pope Nicholas V to King Afonso V of Portugal, 1455 

 
In the 1400s, at the beginning of the period of European exploration and expansion known as the "Age of Discovery," decrees issued by Roman Catholic popes outlined the idea that Christian monarchs had God-given rights to claim non-Christian lands and assert authority over the lands' inhabitants. Indigenous peoples were often expected to convert to Christianity or be enslaved, displaced, or killed. These beliefs were used by monarchs in Spain, Portugal, England, France, and Holland to justify world exploration and colonization.
 
This idea surfaced again in 1823, when Chief Justice John Marshall of the U.S. Supreme Court explained that colonial powers claimed "newly discovered" lands during the Age of Discovery.  It reaffirmed that title to those lands belonged to the government whose subjects discovered the "new" territory. The doctrine ignored the occupation of the lands by indigenous peoples, who were considered inferior to the colonizing nations.
 
The doctrine has been cited as recently as 2005 in the decision City of Sherrill v. Oneida Indian Nation of New York.

 

Theme: 
Shared History
Topics: 
Christianity
Bibliography: 

Newcomb, Steve. Five Hundred Years of Injustice. Shaman's Drum. Fall 1992, pp. 18-20. 

Newcomb, Steven T. Pagans in the Promised Land: Decoding the Doctrine of Christian Discovery. Golden, Colorado: Fulcrum Publishing, 2008. 

Robertson, Lindsay Gordon. Conquest by Law: How the Discovery of America Dispossessed Indigenous Peoples of Their Lands. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2005.

Resources for Further Research: 

Websites

Thedoctrineofdiscovery.org

Primary

Casas, Bartolome De Las. Bartolome De Las Casas Debates the Subjugation of the Indians, 1550. The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History. N.p., n.d. Web. 24 July 2012. 

Pope Alexander V. The Doctrine of Discovery, 1493. The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History. N.p., n.d. Web. 24 July 2012. 

Davenport, Frances Gardener. European Treaties bearing on the History of the United States and its Dependencies to 1648. Carnegie Institution of Washington. Washington D.C.: 1917.

Secondary

Newcomb, Steve. Five Hundred Years of Injustice. Shaman's Drum. Fall 1992, pp. 18-20. 

Newcomb, Steven T. Pagans in the Promised Land: Decoding the Doctrine of Christian Discovery. Golden, Colorado: Fulcrum Publishing, 2008. 

Robertson, Lindsay Gordon. Conquest by Law: How the Discovery of America Dispossessed Indigenous Peoples of Their Lands. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2005.

 

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