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Produced through a partnership between Canopy Forum, the Indigenous Values Initiative (IVI), and Syracuse University
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 – a legal and religious rationale by which European powers claimed the right to discover and claim lands inhabited by non-Christian peoples.
Published: 24 December 2024
INTRODUCTION
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 – a legal and religious rationale by which European powers claimed the right to discover and claim lands inhabited by non-Christian peoples. Focusing primarily on the 19th through the 21st centuries, these essays illustrate how Johnson and the Doctrine of Christian Discovery have global import to Turtle Island (especially the United States and Canada) and Aotearoa (New Zealand).
About
Grounding this conversation in the Two Row Wampum method, the editors of this series have worked to include both Indigenous and non-Indigenous voices so we can journey side by side without violating the waters down the river of life. We recognize the urgency and need for more inclusion of indigenous voices to reaffirm our proper relationship with the natural world in the staid disciplines of religion, law, history, anthropology, and cultural studies. We hope this series inspires generative conversations around Johnson and the Doctrine of Christian Discovery.
Articles
Part 3: Using the Doctrine of Discovery to Foreground an Analysis of Settler Colonialism
In the 1600s when enslaved Africans disembarked en masse and travel weary to this land mass, they arrived in a place where hundreds of Indigenous groups lived since time immemorial.1 Since that moment The majority of the interactions between Black people and Indigenous Peoples living in the so-called United States occur(red) in the bloody context of settler colonial imperialism.
Sarah Nahar
Part 4: Making Common Cause: Imagining Shared Futures
In the 1600s when enslaved Africans disembarked en masse and travel weary to this land mass, they arrived in a place where hundreds of Indigenous groups lived since time immemorial.1 Since that moment The majority of the interactions between Black people and Indigenous Peoples living in the so-called United States occur(red) in the bloody context of settler colonial imperialism.
Sarah Nahar
Documenting Domination: From the Doctrine of Christian Discovery to Dominion Theology
The Doctrine of Christian Discovery is a series of fifteenth-century papal bulls that served as the theological and legal justification for the colonization of the world and the enslavement of the Original Free Nations, starting first on the African continent before spreading across the globe. In the 1800s, these bulls and other documents like The Requerimiento and colonial charters would be codified and enshrined together in U.S. law as the Doctrine of Christian Discovery, becoming the foundation of property law and international law. Also, considering what Peter d’Errico calls Federal Anti-Indian Law, we will trace and document how this framework of domination began with the Catholic crowns of Europe and transformed into the dominion theology found within Christian nationalist theologies today. Our research highlights how the Doctrine became enshrined and encoded within Protestantism and the imagined “secular” of the U.S. and Canada, countries who rhetorically espouse separation of church and state while justifying land theft, treaty violations, and the abuse of Indigenous nations and peoples through the Doctrine. We craft a genealogy of Christian domination by carefully analyzing primary sources, especially the colonial charters. We will conclude by juxtaposing the domination framework and the Haudenosaunee Confederacy’s principles of the Gayanashagowa (Great Law of Peace).
Betty Hill (Lyons)
Adam DJ Brett
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