About The Project As A Whole

In the 1823 US Supreme Court decision, Johnson v M’Intosh, Chief Justice John Marshall wrote,”...discovery gave title to government…[and] the sole right of acquiring the soil from the natives.” This decision underpins US property law. Marshall’s deliberate use of the word “discovery” is an intentional reference to 15th Century Catholic Papal Bulls, which stated that any Christian who “discovers” a land populated by non-Christians has superior title, or rights of ownership, over that land. In essence, JvM codifies into US law the principle of Euro-Christian domination over Indigenous Peoples. In the most devastating sense, DOCD legitimized exploitation, extraction, and enslavement globally and enshrined these practices as the basis of U.S. property law still cited today as recently as 2005 (in Sherrill v. Oneida) and 2020 (McGirt v. Oklahoma).

As we approached the 200^th anniversary of JvM in 2023, there was an urgent need for global recognition of the decision’s implications as reifying DOCD and its exploitation of Indigenous Peoples and their connection to land, thought to be a living being (Mother Earth). For more than a decade, the Doctrine of Discovery Project has worked with these partners to catalyze the rejection of the DOCD among religious communities worldwide. Since starting our efforts in 2009, in an ongoing series of presentations and interventions at the UN, spearheaded by the American Indian Law Alliance, thirteen Christian denominations in the U.S. and globally have publicly repudiated the DOCD.

Read the Press Release to Learn More