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.
Introduction
Introduction to a global volume on Christian Discovery, linking law, religion, and pedagogy, with Indigenous sovereignty and decolonial justice today.
Philip P. Arnold
Sandra Bigtree
Adam DJ Brett
Christian Control of Women and Mother Earth: The Doctrine of Discovery and the Doctrine of Male Domination
Wagner links church patriarchy and the Doctrine of Discovery to colonial violence, calling for Indigenous rematriation to restore women and the Earth.
Sally Roesch Wagner
Charting the Doctrine in the Colonial Archive: Papal Bulls and the Translation of the ‘Discovery’ Purpose
Modrow shows how papal bulls transformed crusade theology into global colonial strategy, legitimizing Indigenous dispossession and imperial expansion.
Sebastian Modrow
Using the Doctrine of Discovery to Increase Shared Language and Conceptual Frameworks Between Black and Indigenous Feminist Organizing
Nahar argues Doctrine of Discovery can build shared language between Black and Indigenous feminisms, strengthening solidarity against settler colonial power.
Sarah Nahar
The Medieval Origins of Religious White Supremacy: English Imperialism, Crusade Defeats, and the Doctrine of Discovery
Callan traces how medieval English myths, crusade defeat, and Irish colonization shaped Christian white supremacy and fed the global Doctrine of Discovery.
Maeve Callan
The Chosen People at Grouse Mountain
Felese challenges conquest-based land values and shows Indigenous relational worldviews offer life-affirming alternatives to extraction and alienation
Wendy Felese
“Engineering Marvel”: Towards Resisting the Affective Politics of Erie Canal Heritage
Nagle critiques Erie Canal heritage marketing, showing how engineered marvel obscures Haudenosaunee dispossession and calls settlers to affective resistance.
Danielle S. Nagle
Deconstructing the Erie Canal: Three Lessons for its Next Century
In this bicentennial reflection on the Erie Canal, Renee Barry examines how celebratory public histories mask the canal's foundation in settler colonial violence on unceded Haudenosaunee land. Drawing on archival research, heritage tourism analysis, and museum narratives, the essay deconstructs myths of progress, civilization, and national destiny embedded in iconic commemorations such as the Wedding of the Waters. Barry argues that these narratives normalize environmental damage, erase Indigenous sovereignty, and recast genocidal dispossession as American achievement. The article links canal ideology to Christian dominance, European expansion, and the legal legacy of the Doctrine of Discovery, while also tracing how revivalist and reform movements reproduced similar hierarchies. Blending critical history with self-reflection, Barry calls for a different future in which Erie Canal memory is reoriented around Indigenous leadership, sacred relationships to place, and accountable ecological repair rather than triumphalist nostalgia. She urges institutions, educators, and visitors to confront inherited narratives and support decolonial stewardship in practice.
Renée Barry
Silencing the Doctrine of Discovery – The Brazilian Process: Accidental Discoveries, Secret Manuscripts, Imaginary Lines and Myths
Alencar traces how the Doctrine of Discovery shaped Brazil through church-backed silence, racial myths, and colonial violence, urging decolonial accountability.
Telma Alencar
Baltic Religion: The Sacred Things
Trinkauskaite explores Baltic sacred traditions and sutartinės, linking domestic deities and revivalist practice to collective ethics beyond hierarchy.
Eglutė Trinkauskaitė
Ellen B. Cutler
