From the Doctrine of Christian Discovery to Indigenous Values By Philip P. Arnold, Religion, Syracuse University and NOON Throughout 2010 the Greater Syracuse community is hosting the educational series Onondaga Land Rights and Our Common Future-II (OLRCF-II). Twelve colleges and universities; 5 community groups including the Indigenous Values Initiative; and a host of individual volunteers have come together to create a monthly series of talks around social and environmental justice concerns. Check out the series of events and try to attend (http://www.peacecouncil.net/noon/index.html). This series was not organized by the Onondaga Nation but by NOON: Neighbors of the Onondaga Nation. I am an active member of NOON and on the planning committee for the series. We have developed this series in line with the values expressed in the Two Row Wampum, or Guswhenta. This is the living agreement between the Dutch (or European Americans) and the Haudenosaunee of 1613 and demonstrates how they can live respectfully side-by-side. The parallel purple strands of beads represent the Haudenosaunee traveling in their canoe and the Europeans traveling in their ship together down the river of life. The agreement is that they will not interfere with one another s way of life. The three rows of white beads between the two purple rows are often referred to as the Covenant Chain. Occasionally it was understood that the Haudenosaunee and European peoples would come together to brighten the chain of Peace, Friendship and Respect. The OLRCF-II is such an occasion to Brighten the Chain. As I have said, the OLRCF-II was created by friends of Onondaga and Haudenosaunee and not by the Onondaga themselves. This series was the creation by the people on the European side of the river of life as expressed by the Two Row Wampum. It was to address urgent issues on our side with respect to the Onondaga. It was not a public relations campaign but an attempt to renew proper relationships with the Indigenous people s whose lands we inhabit. Establishing and re-establishing proper relationships is the primary issue confronting us today. As Oren Lyons has said, but I heard James Cameron (the director of Avatar ) say something very close to it recently on the Charlie Rose Show: there are no problems with the environment. The natural world is going to be fine. It will find a new harmony and balance just probably without most of us alive to see it. In other words, the most urgent thing facing us today is our relationship with the natural world. We, particularly on the European side, urgently need to put ourselves in right relationships with the world, or the natural world will put us in to a proper relationship by shaking us off it s back.
Arnold-DoCD-2 We need to get hold of Indigenous Values like: Economic development cannot make an enemy of the natural world or Indigenous Peoples. There is no future in this perspective. It is shortsighted and anyone concerned about future generations can easily see the wisdom in this. Everyone needs to be involved in the solution to our problems today. Racism and sexism and whatever other sorts of divisions we have created are no longer viable cultural options (if they every were). Everyone has a right and an obligation to participate in the human community. We need to listen to women. The Haudenosaunee are matrilineal and there is deep wisdom in really listening to women. It s likely that we would be slower to get in to protracted conflicts, wars, etc. I live in an area where more women are taking on leadership responsibilities and this bodes well for our future. In December 2009 I accompanied a delegation of Haudenosaunee people to the Parliament of World Religions meeting in Melbourne Australia (http://www.parliamentofreligions.org/). Founded in 1893, this is the largest interfaith organization in the world dedicated to bringing the world s religions together in dialog with one another. In 2009 major topics included healing the earth with care and concern, and reconciling with the Indigenous Peoples. Numerous Indigenous Peoples were invited and a great number of panels and presentations were arranged. During an Indigenous caucus a document was agreed upon which highlighted their major concerns. In addition to environmental and cultural devastation a major concern was the Doctrine of Christian Discovery. In part it reads: An Indigenous Peoples Statement to the World on the Traditional Lands of the Wurundjeri People of the Kulin Nation Unfortunately, certain doctrines have been threatening to the survival of our cultures, our languages, and our peoples, and devastating to our ways of life. These are found in particular colonizing documents such as the Inter Caetera papal bull of 1493, which called for the subjugation of non-christian nations and peoples and the propagation of the Christian empire. This is the root of the Doctrine of Christian Discovery that is still interwoven into laws and policies today that must be changed. The principles of subjugation contained in this and other such documents, and in the religious texts and documents of other religions, have been and continue to be destructive to our ways of life (religions), cultures, and the survival of our Indigenous nations and peoples. This oppressive tradition is what led to the boarding schools, the residential schools, and the Stolen Generation, resulting in the trauma of Indigenous peoples being cut off from their languages and cultures, resulting in language death and loss of family integrity from the actions of churches and governments. We call on those churches and governments to put as much time, effort, energy and money into assisting with the revitalization of our languages and cultures as they put into attempting to destroy them; (full statement is available on the IVI site)
Arnold-DoCD-3 At least since 1452 a succession of Catholic Popes have given Christian discoverers legal and moral sanction to seize lands, goods and enslave non-christian peoples. This was first used on the West Coast of Africa, which led to the trans-atlantic slave trade. It was then used throughout the Americas, and the Pacific-rim (including New Zealand, Philippines and Australia). The Age of Discovery, as it has been called, was fueled by a religious drive to retake the Holy Land and to create a Christian empire. If anything were to define what is opposite to Indigenous Values it would be the Doctrine of Christian Discovery. 1 If there is a single cultural idea that could be regarded as an impediment to the entire world appreciating and adopting Indigenous Values it would be the Doctrine of Christian Discovery. As we shall see, this 15 th century crazy religion talk is still very much with us. In fact, for most of the world, it is the law of the land. The Papal Bull (letter from the Pope to the church) titled Dum diversas of 1452 from Nicholas V to King Alfonso V of Portugal directs the adventurer to...invade, capture, vanquish, and subdue all Saracens and pagans to reduce their persons to perpetual slavery and to take away all their possessions and property. In other words, if a Christian were to encounter a non-christian, even in their own homelands it was their duty to take away everything they had. Just after Columbus return to Spain Pope Alexander VI issued the papal bull Inter caetera in which he calls for the barbarous nations to be subjugated and brought to the Catholic faith for the propagation of the Christian empire (imperii christiani). All non-christian belongs (precious metals, land and human flesh) were to be utilized for the expansion of Christianity. In 1823 the US Supreme Court officially accepted the then nearly 300 year old concept of the Doctrine of Christian Discovery. In the Johnson v. M Intosh decision Chief Justice John Marshall outlined the history of the Doctrine of Christian Discovery as a fundamental characteristic of U.S. property law. In it he borrows the dehumanizing doctrine stating that by law, the conquest of America creates clear title because Christian people appeared on lands inhabited by natives, who were heathens. This decision is currently studied in every law school property law class. In a single decision Marshall transformed the Catholic principle of discovery in to the Protestant nation building project in the early part of U.S. history. The Doctrine of Christian Discovery is still active in U.S. law. For example in the U.S. Supreme Court decision Oneida Nation v. Sherrill, NY (2005) Justice Ginsberg wrote the majority opinion against the Oneida Nation land action. The first citation was the Doctrine of Discovery as fundamental for the presumption of clear title. In other words this doctrine has become literally the law of the land. This doctrine has become the primary obstacle for the world community to embrace fundamental rights for Indigenous peoples. The historic U.N. Declaration on the Rights 1 Steve Newcomb s Pagans in the Promised Land: Decoding the Doctrine of Christian Discovery (Fulcrum, 2008) is the best book on this topic.
Arnold-DoCD-4 of Indigenous Peoples (12 September 2007) officially recognized the humanity of Indigenous Peoples. Only Canada, Australia, New Zealand and the U.S., which together form the acronym CANZUS, voted against the U.N. Declaration. 2 Because the Doctrine of Christian Discovery is so closely tied to property and land title in these former British colonies these states chose to uphold these racist religious ideas of the 15 th century. Since 2007 Australia has voted in favor of the U.N. Declaration and Canada seems close to doing the same. Our colonial past is keeping us from an Indigenous relationship to the land that has been articulated by Indigenous peoples since time immemorial. This threatens our long-term sustainability. The Haudenosaunee statement of 3 May 2008 reads: [I]t turns out that the Principles of the Doctrine of Discovery remain foundational and determinative in US federal Law and the law of many other settler states around the world. The Law of Christendom, which prevailed during the discovery periods of the 15th, 16th, 17th centuries, continues on into today. The Divine Rights of Kings and Popes were the engines of Empire. The Papal Bulls of 1493-94 coupled with the First Letters of Patent issued by King Henry VII to John Cabot and Sons, March 5, 1496 established the process of colonization of the Western Hemisphere. The Cabot Charter (1496) gave John Cabot the mission to, seek out, discover, and find, whatsoever isles, countries, and regions of the heathens and infidels that before this time have been unknown to all Christian people. It was Henry VII attempt to get in on the actions of Spain and Portugal during the earlier part of the century. At this time England was a Catholic nation but by the 1530s and the reign of Henry VIII it was moving swiftly to embrace the Protestant revolution sweeping across Northern Europe. In July 2009 the Episcopal Church unanimously adopted the resolution D035 Repudiate the Doctrine of Discovery. This was largely the result of the work of John Dieffenbacher-Krall of Maine. In spite of the fact that the Cabot Charter pre-dates the establishment of the Episcopal Church this resolution understands that there is something fundamentally corrosive to core Christian tenets. As it says, the 76 th General Convention repudiates and renounces the Doctrine of Discovery as fundamentally opposed to the Gospel of Jesus Christ and our understanding of the inherent rights that individuals and peoples have received from Go. Resolution D035 goes on to advocate for the Archbishop of Canterbury to adopt a similar resolution and advocate for the adoption of the U.N. Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. Similar moves are being advanced among grassroots Catholic, Unitarians, and Friends or Quaker groups. 2 Tonya Gonnella Frichner, Onondaga Snipe Clan, Director of the American Indian Law Alliance and North American Representative to the U.N. Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues, was instrumental in forming the U.N. Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. See Impact on Indigenous Peoples of the International Legal construct known as the Doctrine of Discovery, which has served as the Foundation of the Violation of their Human Rights Submitted by the Secretariat of the UNPFII for the 9 th session 19-30 April 2010 at the U.N. in New York City (http://www.un.org/esa/socdev/unpfii/en/session_ninth.html).
Arnold-DoCD-5 On the European side of the river of life, the Doctrine of Christian Discovery has put us in wrong relationships to the natural world and Indigenous Peoples. From my perspective it has brought us to the precarious position and threatens our continued existence. It is a primary impediment for our being able to hear the wisdom of Indigenous values. But knowing about the Doctrine of Christian Discovery is the first step toward understanding where and how we have gone wrong and how we can effectively Brighten the Chain once again.