Outcome Documents for
200 Years of Johnson v. M’Intosh (JvM): Indigenous Responses to the Religious Foundations of Racism
This website is the official archive of the outcome publications from the Henry J. Luce Foundation Grant Funded project “200 Years of Johnson v. M’Intosh (JvM): Indigenous Responses to the Religious Foundations of Racism". Professor Philip P. Arnold was the PI on this project which ran from 2022-2024. Project activities included a conference, podcasts, and various types of publications.
Summary
“200 Years of Johnson v. M’Intosh (JvM): Indigenous Responses to the Religious Foundations of Racism,” is a collaborative initiative made possible through relationships developed over 30 years between academic and Indigenous communities. At its core, the project seeks to interrogate and critically examine connections between the Doctrine of Christian Discovery (DOCD), the Catholic Papal Bulls that undergird the Doctrine, and the Doctrine’s pernicious influence on United States Indian Law today.
The 200th anniversary of JvM provides an excellent moment to challenge the theology and jurisprudence of DOCD and this critical Supreme Court decision. The project will deliver a range of digital products and written works combined with a host of public outreach activities to raise awareness about the harmful impacts of the DOCD and provide support for a global movement of Indigenous People’s that seek to repudiate it.
200 Years of Johnson v. M’Intosh:Law, Religion, and Native American Lands
Produced through a partnership between Canopy Forum, the Indigenous Values Initiative (IVI), and Syracuse University, this series of essays brings together religion scholars, legal scholars, and Indigenous activists to explore the problematic legacy of Johnson v. M’Intosh (1823) and the 15th century Doctrine of (Christian) Discovery
Introduction to 200 Years of Johnson v. M’Intosh: Law, Religion, and Native American Lands
As historians of religions, we are interested in myths, history, and creation narratives. The U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark ruling in Johnson v. M’Intosh (1823) includes all these elements. The Johnson decision illustrates one of the powerful ways in which Christianity has played a hegemonic role within American law and culture at the expense of Mother Earth and all living beings, especially Indigenous peoples.
Philip P. Arnold
Sandra Bigtree
Adam DJ Brett
Johnson v. M’Intosh and the Missing Cover of the Jigsaw Puzzle
February 28, 2023 marked 200 years since Chief Justice John Marshall delivered a unanimous decision for the U.S. Supreme Court in the case Johnson & Graham’s Lessee v. M’Intosh. This decision enshrined into the system of ideas and arguments called “U.S. law,” the assertion that the Christian nations of Europe, and their political successors, had a right of discovery and domination (“ultimate dominion”) against the original nations and peoples of this continent. At one point, the Court used the phrase “natives who were heathens,” language which is traced to the Bible and to Vatican documents from the fifteenth century.
Steven T. Newcomb
Johnson v. M’Intosh, Wi Parata v. Bishop of Wellington, and the Legacy of the Doctrine of Discovery in Aotearoa-New Zealand
Here in Aotearoa-New Zealand the doctrine of discovery is, for many, a very new concept. If people knew of it at all, they assumed it to be relevant to the history of the Americas, but not to Aotearoa-New Zealand. This is in part due to our preoccupation with the colonial fiction of a “kind settlement.” A concerted grassroots campaign organized during the 2019 national commemorations of James Cook’s invasion in 1769 resulted in heightened awareness of his imperial intent. Consequently, there has been a somewhat belated awakening for Aotearoa-New Zealand to the reality of how the doctrine of discovery arrived here and has come to shape our existence.
Tina Ngata
