What Doctrine of Discovery Statements of Religious Repudiation Reveal

Nations formulate doctrines that define and guide their relations toward other nations. The Monroe Doctrine, and the Truman, Carter, and Bush Doctrines are American examples. As nations in Christendom in the 15th century had the wherewithal to explore the world by sea, popes formulated a doctrine to shape their relations with the lands and people the explorers would encounter.

How we met the Doctrine of Discovery. A Maya commentary - Doctrine of Discovery

It was an ordinary evening on October 9, 2018 when, scrolling down my mouse wheel randomly looking at posts on Facebook something suddenly caught my attention: A post launched an invitation from the Mennonite Coalition for the Dismantling of the Doctrine of Discovery to join a Christian lament in the United States. The post invited lamenting of the Doctrine of Discovery (DD) and encouraged reflection on its consequences for the lives of Indigenous Peoples today.

City of Sherrill v. Oneida Indian Nation, 544 U.S. 197 (2005): THE DOCTRINE OF CHRISTIAN DISCOVERY AND DOMINATION AND THE DENIAL OF TREATY RIGHTS

This shameful, land mark decision by the Supreme Court was issued just three weeks after the filing of the Onondaga Nation’s Land Rights Action. It was a remarkable decision in several ways and although it was not a land claim or a land rights action, it resulted in negative impacts on the Haudenosaunee land cases, as it has been used as the excuse to dismiss the then pending Oneida, Onondaga and Cayuga land rights cases.

Reappraising the Doctrine of Discovery

Again, were we to inquire by what law or authority you set up a claim [to our land], I answer, none! Your laws extend not into our country, nor ever did. You talk of the law of nature and the law of nations, and they are both against you. ~ Corn Tassel (Cherokee, 1785)

Indigenous Consent: A Right Rooted in the Doctrine of Discovery

Indians being the prior occupants, possess the right to the soil. It cannot be taken from them unless by their free consent…. To dispossess them in any other principle, would be a gross violation of the fundamental laws of nature” (Henry Knox, Secretary of War, 1789).

Lyng v. Northwest Indian Cemetery Protective Association, 485 U.S. 439

In 1988 the United States Supreme Court declared constitutional the federal government’s development plan in the High Country, aboriginal homeland of the Karuk Nation of Northern California, sacred to them as well as to the Yurok and Tolowa Nations, and managed today by the US Forest Service as the Six Rivers National Forest among the Siskiyou Mountains. The Court admitted that “it is undisputed that the Indian respondents’ beliefs are sincere and that the Government’s proposed actions will have severe adverse effects on the practice of their religion.” Nevertheless, because the disputed area was on public land, the Court thought that the government should be allowed to manage its property in any way it saw fit, regardless of the severe adverse effects on the religious practice of the three Indigenous nations. A lot has been written about this case, Lyng v. Northwest Indian Cemetery Protective Association, but here I would like to focus on the Court’s reasoning, that this is government property and therefore cannot be protected as Indigenous sacred land with accordance with the religion clauses of the First Amendment to the US Constitution. Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, writing for the majority, declares that “whatever rights the Indians may have to the use of the area—those rights do not divest the Government of its right to use what is, after all, its land.