U & D

If you are like me, your knowledge of Henry VII and John Cabot’s charter to explore and claim New World lands is a little fuzzy. Thanks to John Dieffenbacher-Krall (Executive Director of MITSC) for sharing this history we all should know. Quotes are from John’s email to me of 7-30-2009 and a sermon he preached on 7-12-09:

What gave Europeans the legal and moral cover to conquer peoples in Africa, Asia, and the Western Hemisphere? The Christian Doctrine of Discovery. The Episcopal Church passed a resolution earlier this month denouncing the Christian Doctrine of Discovery…Penobscot elder and spirtual leader Butch Phillips recently remarked to me that the Doctrine of Discovery is an intergral part of world history. We shouldn’t graduate high school and college students who don’t understand how this doctrine facilatated European conquest of non-Christian lands. (email)

Pope Nicholas V first articulated the Doctrine of Discovery in the papal bull Dum Diversas in 1452. The Doctrine of Discovery consists of the idea that Christians have a right sanctioned by God to take non-Christian lands and property and assert political control over the indigenous inhabitants. For example, the papal bull Dum Diversas grants the king of Portugal the Pope’s blessing to go to the western coast of Africa, and to … “’capture, vanquish and subdue the Saracens, pagans and other enemies of Christ, and put them into perpetual slavery and to take all their possessions and their property.’”

… In 1496, King Henry VII [Anglican king of Britain] granted a patent to John Cabot and his sons to possess all lands in the New World not previously discovered by Portugal or Spain. It reads in part:

And that the before-mentioned John and his sons or their heirs and deputies may conquer, occupy and possess whatsoever such towns, castles, cities and islands by them thus discovered that they may be able to conquer, occupy and possess, as our vassals and governors lieutenants and deputies therein, acquiring for us the dominion, title and jurisdiction of the same towns, castles, cities, islands and mainlands so discovered (sermon).

In its annual meeting this year, the Episcopal Church passed a resolution repudiating the Doctrine of Discovery – and calling upon the global Church to do the same. Maine was the first state to take on this issue, backing the Wabanaki nations with its own resolution in 2007. Will this turn back the clock and restore lands to the Penobscot, Passamaquoddy, Micmac, Maliseet and other Native tribes and nations? No. But it will and does once again bring the concept of Sovereignty to the forefront of discussion.

The Doctrine and surrounding issues are discussed at some length in the article called Saving Maine for the Indians; The Legacy of Joseph Nicolar’s The Life and Traditions of the Red Man (available to Maine’s teachers and students through MARVEL! Academic Search Premier – do a title search – or download by clicking this link: 2009 Summer MELUS Kolodny Saving Maine for the Indian). The article is suitable for high school students (selections can be read in the middle school).

You might also share with students Micmac historian, activist and author Daniel Paul’s web page quoting from his We Were Not the Savages (about the impact of Cabot’s “discovery”). The drawing at the top of the page is itself worth of class discussion. Paul’s site also provides an essay on the Doctrine of Discovery.