Papal Bulls
Papal Bulls created the foundation for the Doctrine of Discovery.
Repudiations
Repuidations of the Doctrine of Discovery by religious organizations and faith communities
Recent posts
The Contemporary Presence of Discovery’s Assertion in Canada Permalink
One of the striking features of chief justice John Marshall’s articulation of the Doctrine of Discovery is the assertion that Indigenous sovereignty and righ...
Federal Anti-Indian Law: The Legal Entrapment of Indigenous Peoples by Peter d’Errico Permalink
Chief Justice Marshall constructed federal anti-Indian law in three early nineteenth-century cases. First came Johnson v. McIntosh (1823), a property law dec...
Introduction to 200 Years of Johnson v. M’Intosh: Law, Religion, and Native American Lands Permalink
In 1823, Chief Justice John Marshall based the supposed right of colonizing forces to dominate and take ownership of the land on what he viewed as the natura...
200 Years of Johnson v. M’Intosh: Law, Religion, and Native American Lands Permalink
A Canopy Forum Thematic Series March – April 2023
Effectuating Renunciation: An International Effort to Provide a Pathway to Repudiate the Doctrine of Discovery
On September 8, 2021 the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) voted to renounce the Doctrine of Discovery by adopting Motion 048, now Resolu...
Aucan Huilcaman: Chilean Constitutional Process and its Permanent Denial of the Mapuche Nation Permalink
The Chilean political class that converges in the Chamber of Deputies and Senators, not only continue to act in the “old political doctrine of denial of the ...
Animal Nations and the Doctrine of Discovery
Democracy: “Democracy didn’t come across on the Mayflower. Indeed not. Nor with the Niña nor Santa Maria. Certainly not. Democracy was here. It was in full f...
Lyng v. Northwest Indian Cemetery Protective Association, 485 U.S. 439
In 1988 the United States Supreme Court declared constitutional the federal government’s development plan in the High Country, aboriginal homeland of the Kar...
Indigenous Consent: A Right Rooted in the Doctrine of Discovery
Consent is a fundamental Indigenous right that exists in a reciprocal relationship with all other Indigenous rights. However, the role of consent is especial...
Unraveling the International Law of Colonialism: The 200th Anniversary of Johnson v. M’Intosh Permalink
Reappraising the Doctrine of Discovery
The European doctrine of discovery principle, recognized as recently as 1986 by a federal district court as a legal fiction, nevertheless remains one of the ...
City of Sherrill v. Oneida Indian Nation, 544 U.S. 197 (2005): THE DOCTRINE OF CHRISTIAN DISCOVERY AND DOMINATION AND THE DENIAL OF TREATY RIGHTS
This shameful, land mark decision by the Supreme Court was issued just three weeks after the filing of the Onondaga Nation’s Land Rights Action. It was a rem...
How we met the Doctrine of Discovery. A Maya commentary
It was an ordinary evening on October 9, 2018 when, scrolling down my mouse wheel randomly looking at posts on Facebook something suddenly caught my attentio...
What Doctrine of Discovery Statements of Religious Repudiation Reveal
Nations formulate doctrines that define and guide their relations toward other nations. The Monroe Doctrine, and the Truman, Carter, and Bush Doctrines are A...
U.S. v. KING MOUNTAIN TOBACCO CO., INC. DECISION 9th Circuit, August 13, 2018
Tobacco company, owned by a Yakima Nation citizen, makes cigarettes using 54 % tobacco that is grown on allotted nation land, held in trust by US. The 9th Ci...