The Roots of The Doctrine of Discovery – Aric Clark

From 1500 to the 1960’s European Christians colonized the entire planet.

No. Seriously. Look at that map.

Only five modern countries were never under European colonial control. Thailand because it was set aside as a buffer between British and French colonial interests in the region. Liberia because America backed the nation, which was founded by freed American slaves who moved to Africa. Japan and Korea escaped because of strong isolationist policies, but Japan later colonized both Korea and Thailand when it briefly imitated European imperialism in the early 20th century. Some argue Ethiopia should be added to this list. Regardless, it is a very short list.

This sustained period of domination and exploitation was hardest on indigenous peoples around the world whose rights to the land they had lived in, in some cases for thousands of years, were not recognized by the colonizers. European Christians claimed the territory and resources of indigenous peoples with extreme violence. Native people were either killed, displaced, or forced to conform to the language and culture of the invaders. The effects of these crimes reverberate through our society. We are only just beginning to deal with the consequences of our colonial history.

Christians have a particular role in grappling with this injustice, because the Europeans who engaged in the colonial project did so with explicit theological justification. They were acting according to something called the Doctrine of Discovery, which essentially says that only Christians are fully human and entitled to own land. “Pagans and infidels” have the right of occupancy until such time as their land is “discovered” by a properly Christian authority, then their rights and their lives are basically forfeit.

The Doctrine of Discovery is derived from a series of Papal Bulls issued in the 1400’s when the power of the Ottoman empire was growing and the military power of the papacy was waning. Rome was desperate to get the sovereigns of Europe to fight the “Saracens” and thus various decrees were made granting them the authority to wage holy war and claim new territory for themselves:

“We grant you [Kings of Spain and Portugal] by these present documents, with our Apostolic Authority, full and free permission to invade, search out, capture, and subjugate the Saracens and pagans and any other unbelievers and enemies of Christ wherever they may be, as well as their kingdoms, duchies, counties, principalities, and other property […] and to reduce their persons into perpetual servitude.”

The above quote is from Dum Diversas which was issued in 1452 shortly before the fall of Constantinople and reaffirmed several times thereafter in even broader and stronger language. Even though the initial purpose was to stoke something like a last crusade against the Ottomans the documents were almost immediately put to use justifying the colonial interests of Spain and Portugal.

Of course, it didn’t remain limited to Spain and Portugal. As other nations got into the colonial project they either received blessings from the Pope, or simply made mirror decrees of their own, such as the letter patent that Henry VII of England gave to John Cabot charging him to, “find, discover and investigate whatsoever islands, countries, regions or provinces of heathens and infidels, in whatsoever part of the world placed, which before this time were unknown to all Christians.”

In a very short space of time it became the widely accepted practice that European Christians, whether Catholic or Protestant, could claim any land or resources whatsoever so long as it was not already claimed by another Christian sovereign. The entire non-Christian world was officially deemed unoccupied, notwithstanding the millions of people actually living in it. It was the Doctrine of Discovery which formally provided the moral license for the transatlantic slave trade as well as the genocide of the Native Americans.

The roots of this terrible idea have reached right into the foundations of our society and shape our interactions with indigenous peoples till this day. The most recent United States National Defense Authorization Act (2015), included in it a provision to sell land sacred to the San Carlos Apache Tribe to the Australian-English mining company Rio Tinto. We are still stealing their resources and when we’re forced to give a justification the fundamental principles at work are the same as the ones which entitled the conquistadors to rape and pillage their way through the Western Hemisphere.

For years Christians of European descent have been saying to themselves that what we did to indigenous peoples was terrible, but it’s too late to do anything about it. This is a lie which lets us off the hook for doing the vital and timely work of repentance. Indigenous peoples are still being marginalized. Settler colonialism is not over. Every moment we fail to start making amends is a moment we carry on complicit in the genocide which the Doctrine of Discovery instigated.

Aric Clark is a writer, speaker, and Presbyterian minister who lives in Portland, Oregon with his wife and two gremlins pretending to be his sons. He is the co-author of Never Pray Again: Lift Your Head, Unfold Your Hands, and Get to Work, a book which challenges readers to embrace a concrete other-centered spiritualiy, and the host of LectionARIC, a Youtube channel dealing with geeky hermeneutics. When he is not writing, preaching, or parenting, Aric can be found engaging his tabletop gaming hobby, or cooking for a crowd of random strangers he invited home without his wife’s permission. He is a pacifist and still can’t grow a beard.