Bibliography

The Doctrine of Discovery Working Bibliography

Critical Research on the Doctrine of Discovery

• Arnold, Philip P. The Urgency of Indigenous Values. Syracuse University Press, 2023.
• Augustine, Sarah. The Land Is Not Empty: Following Jesus in Dismantling the Doctrine of Discovery. MennoMedia, Inc., 2021.
• Charles, Mark, and Soong-Chan Rah. Unsettling Truths: The Ongoing, Dehumanizing Legacy of the Doctrine of Discovery. InterVarsity Press, 2019.
• Churchill, Ward. A Little Matter of Genocide: Holocaust and Denial in the Americas 1492 to the Present. City Lights Books, 1997.
• Conroy-Krutz, Emily. Christian Imperialism: Converting the World in the Early American Republic. Cornell University Press, 2017.
• Deloria Jr, Vine. For This Land: Writings on Religion in America. Routledge, 2013.
• Deloria, Vine. Custer Died for Your Sins: An Indian Manifesto. University of Oklahoma Press, 1988.
• ———. God Is Red : A Native View of Religion. 1 online resource (344 pages) vols. New York: Fulcrum Pub., 2003. https://public.ebookcentral.proquest.com/choice/publicfullrecord.aspx?p=478520.
• D’Errico, Peter P. Federal Anti-Indian Law : The Legal Entrapment of Indigenous Peoples. Santa Barbara, California: Praeger, an Imprint of ABC-CLIO, LLC, 2022.
• Dunbar-Ortiz, Roxanne. Not” a Nation of Immigrants”: Settler Colonialism, White Supremacy, and a History of Erasure and Exclusion. Beacon Press, 2021.
• Greenberg, Joy H. “The Doctrine of Discovery as a Doctrine of Domination.” Journal for the Study of Religion, Nature & Culture 10, no. 2 (2016).
• Harvey, Roberta Carol, 1950-. The Earth Is Red : The Imperialism of the Doctrine of Discovery. Santa Fe: Sunstone Press, 2021.
• Heath, Joseph J. “The Doctrine Of Christian Discovery: Its Fundamental Importance In United States Indian Law And The Need For Its Repudiation And Removal.” Albany Government Law Review 10, no. 1 (April 27, 2017). https://doctrineofdiscovery.org/law/resources/algr-doctrine-christian-discovery-indian-law-repuidation/.
• Jennings, Willie James. The Christian Imagination: Theology and the Origins of Race. Yale University Press, 2010.
• Jones, Robert P. The Hidden Roots of White Supremacy: And the Path to a Shared American Future. Simon and Schuster, 2023.
• Matthiessen, Peter, Daniel K. Inouye 1924-2012, Oren Lyons, John Mohawk 1945-2006., Robert W. Venables, Howard R. Berman, Curtis Berkey, Donald A. Grinde 1946-, Vine Deloria, and Laurence M. Hauptman. Exiled in the Land of the Free : Democracy, Indian Nations, and the U.S. Constitution. 1st ed. Santa Fe, N.M.: Clear Light Publishers, 1992.
• Miller, Robert J. Native America, Discovered and Conquered : Thomas Jefferson, Lewis & Clark, and Manifest Destiny. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2008.
• Miller, Robert J., Jacinta Ruru, Larissa Behrendt, and Tracey Lindberg. Discovering Indigenous Lands: The Doctrine of Discovery in the English Colonies. Oxford University Press, 2010. https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199579815.001.0001.
• Newcomb, Steven T. “Original Nations of ‘Great Turtle Island’ and the Genesis of the United States.” The Wiley Blackwell Companion to Religion and Politics in the US, 2016, 5–17.
• ———. Pagans in the Promised Land: Decoding the Doctrine of Christian Discovery. Fulcrum Publishing, 2008.
• Notes, Akwesasne. A Basic Call to Consciousness: The Haudenosaunee Address to the Western World. Akwesasne, Mohawk Nation: Akwesasne Notes, 1978.
• Robertson, Lindsay G. Conquest by Law: How the Discovery of America Dispossessed Indigenous Peoples of Their Lands. Oxford University Press, 2005.
• Ruehl, Robert Michael. “Thoreau’s ‘A Week,’ Religion as Preservative Care : Opposing the Christian Doctrine of Discovery, Manifest Destiny, and a Religion of Subjugation.” Syracuse University, 2014. WorldCat. https://www.proquest.com/docview/1540757471.
• Seed, Patricia. Ceremonies of Possession in Europe’s Conquest of the New World, 1492-1640. Cambridge University Press, 1995.
• The Doctrine of Discovery : Unmasking the Domination Code. [Morton, Minnesota]: 38 Plus 2 Productions [distributor], 2015.
• Tinker, George E. American Indian Liberation: A Theology of Sovereignty. Orbis Books, 2020.
• ———. Missionary Conquest: The Gospel and Native American Cultural Genocide. Fortress Press, 1993.
• Williams Jr, Robert A. The American Indian in Western Legal Thought: The Discourses of Conquest. Oxford University Press, 1992.

Open Access Resources Listed by Author

• d’Errico, Peter. “Replacing the Doctrine of Christian Discovery and Implementing the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.”
• _____. “Indigenous Lèse-majesté: Questioning U.S. Federal Indian Law” (⤓ Download as PDF).
• _____. “Seeing through the chimera of U.S. federal Indian ‘trust’ law.” (⤓ Download as PDF).
• Gonnella Frichner, Tonya. “Preliminary study of the impact on Indigenous peoples of the international legal construct known as the Doctrine of Discovery,” UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues Ninth session, New York, 19-30 April 2010. (Download as PDF).
• Heath, Joseph J. The Doctrine of Christian Discovery: Its Fundamental Importance in United States Indian Law and the Need for its Repudiation and Removal. 10 Alb. Govt. L. Rev. 112 (2017)  (⤓ Download as a PDF).
• _____. A Brief History of Haudenosaunee Treaty Making and The Obligations of the United States to Protect Haudenosaunee Lands and to Not Disturb the Free Use and Enjoyment Thereof. (⤓ Download as PDF).
• _____. The Citizenship Act of 1924 was an Integral Pillar of The Colonization and Forced Assimilation Policies of the United States in Violation of Treaties. (Download as PDF).
• _____. Nations Are Sovereign; They Are Not “Tribes.” (⤓ Download as PDF).
• _____. Statement on the Historical Use of the Doctrine of Christian Discovery by the United States Supreme Court Since 1823. (Download as PDF).
• Hauptman, Laurence M. Conspiracy of Interests, Iroquois Dispossession and the Rise of New York State. Laurence M. Hauptman, professor of history at the State University of New York at New Paltz. A study of the three interlocking forces -transportation, land and national defense- shows its impact on Iroqoia. Mander, Jerry (ed.). Paradigm Wars, Indigenous Peoples’ Resistance to Globalization, Edited by Jerry Mander, founder of the International Forum on Globalization, and Victoria Tauli-Corpuz, Igorat leader from the Philippines, director of Tebtebba Foundation and chair of the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues. Firsthand reports tell of the momentous collision of worldviews collide with the Earth’s indigenous peoples.
• Francis, Robert, Two Kinds of Beings: The Doctrine of Discovery And Its Implications for Yesterday and Today. Manataka American Indian Council. (archive.org edition)
• Miller, Robert J. Native America, Discovered and Conquered, Thomas Jefferson, Lewis and Clark and Manifest Destiny, Robert J. Miller, (Eastern Shawnee), associate professor at the Lewis and Clark Law School in Portland, Oregon. Professor Miller traces the concept of the Doctrine of Discovery and Manifest Destiny and their foundation in justifying the exploration and settlement of the United States.
• _____. “The Doctrine of Discovery: The International Law of Colonialism,” The Indigenous Peoples’ Journal of Law, Culture & Resistance, 5(1), 2019. https://escholarship.org/uc/item/3cj6w4mj The International Law of Colonialism a Comparative Analysis by Robert J. Miller (76 page ⤓ PDF download).
• _____. 10 elements which constitute the Doctrine of Discovery ⤓ PDF download).
• _____. Discovering Indigenous Lands The Doctrine of Discovery in the English Colonies eds. Robert J. Miller, Jacinta Ruru, Larissa Behrendt, Tracey Lindberg, (OUP) 2010.
• Nelson, Melissa K. Original Instructions, Indigenous Teachings for a Sustainable Future, Edited by Melissa K. Nelson, professor of American Indian studies at San Francisco State University. Beautiful, wise voices gathered at the Bioneers conference share stories safeguarded by Indigenous cultures remind us about gratitude, kinship and reverence for community and creation.
• Newcomb, Steven T. Pagans in the Promise Land, Decoding the Doctrine of Christian Discovery (Fulcrum Publishing 2008), Steven T. Newcomb, (Shawnee/Lanape), cofounder and co-director of the Indigenous Law Institute, fellow with the American Indian Policy and Media Initiative of Buffalo State College and columnist with the newspaper Indian Country Today. A startling challenge to federal Indian law and policy using history and cognitive theory to challenge the separation of church and state.
• _____. Pagans in the Promised Land: a Primer on Religious Freedom.
  • a short article connecting the discourse of religious freedom to the Doctrine of Christian Discovery.
  • Now Streaming: The Doctrine of Discovery: Unmasking the Domination Code, directed by Sheldon Wolfchild
• _______. “Evidence of Christian Nationalism In Federal Indian Law: The Doctrine of Discovery, Johnson v. M’Intosh, and Plenary Power” in NYU Review of Law and Social Change (volume 20, issue 2), 1992. (⤓ Download as PDF).
• _______. The Biblical Basis of Federal Indian Law & Policy.
• Robertson, Lindsay G. “John Marshall as Colonial Historian: Reconsidering the Origins of the Discovery Doctrine,” Journal of Law & Politics 13, no. 4 (Fall 1997): 759-778.
• Smith, Mark A.A. Sovereignty Over Unoccupied Territories–The Western Sahara Decision, (1975).
• Stogre, Michael. That the World May Believe, The Development of Papal Social Thought on Aboriginal Rights, Michael Stogre, Jesuit priest and medical doctor engaged in native ministry. The Church’s mission to evangelize and the human rights of the receiver are traced through seven centuries of papal teaching.
• Watson, Blake A., “The Impact of the American Doctrine of Discovery on Native Land Rights in Australia, Canada, and New Zealand,” Seattle University Law Review 34, no. 2 (Winter 2011): 507-552
• Williams, Robert A. Jr. The American Indian in Western Legal Thought: The Discourses of Conquest (OUP 1992).

Multiple Authors

• Basic Call to Consciousness, edited by Akwesasne Notes. Position papers delivered to the Non-Governmental Organization of the United Nations in Geneva in 1977 describe oppression of Native peoples in the US.
  • To purchase a copy of the Basic Call to Consciousness in English or Spanish contact Indigenous Values Initiative at info@indigenousvalues.org
• Roots of the Iroquois, Tehanetorens, various native authors, traces the origins of the Confederacy and its growth and attempts to destroy it.
• Story Earth, Native Voices on the Environment, Compiled by Inter Press Service. This book draws a clear distinction between cultures and how the environment is viewed.  

Films

• The Doctrine of Discovery: Unmasking the Domination Code, now on Vimeo
• Spirit Game: Pride of a Nation. Now on DVD and streaming.

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Also view our list of Online Resources