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.
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
The Legacy of the Right to Control Land and Dependency
This article is part of our “200 Years of Johnson v. M’Intosh: Law, Religion, and Native American Lands” series. - Legacy embeds the actions and inactions of those before us into the current legal, political, and social processes. Reverberating through history are the echoes of words that canonized inequity in the systemic structures of federalism in the United States. In 1823,
Kerri J. Malloy
The International Law of Colonialism:Johnson v. M’Intosh and the Doctrine of Discovery Applied Worldwide
This article is part of our “200 Years of Johnson v. M’Intosh: Law, Religion, and Native American Lands” series. The International Law of Colonialism:Johnson v. M’Intosh and the Doctrine of Discovery Applied Worldwide
Robert J. Miller
