A 15th century Catholic decree permitting Europeans to seize Indian land in the New World is a load of papal bull. That was the message Tuesday from the Onondaga Nation, which is calling on the new Pope to revoke the so-called Discovery Doctrine, which evolved from a papal decree written by Pope Nicholas V in 1455....The Discovery Doctrine was a key element in the moral justification of the European conquest of indigenous people around the world and remains influential in legal circles. In the U.S., it is often cited as a way of arguing that the nomadic Native Americans occupied the land but did not own it....
....Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg cited the doctrine in a 2005 ruling against the Oneida Indian Nation. The ruling affirmed the government’s sovereignty over lands, even if they’re sold to an Indian tribe.
How could it have been written in 1455 when Columbus didn’t find the New World until 1492 ???
papal decree written by Pope Nicholas V in 1455
I thought Columbus sailed the ocean blue in 1492?
Indian givers (and takers).
I have legal papers that say I own/have title to land and other property. Now someone I don't know and who has not "paid" for what I own tells me I don't really own it, but only "occupy" it? Houston we have a problem. God has a prior claim, but other men do not.
Alex Murphy:
I wonder if all the Liberals are correct, Mexicans are not illegals as Texas, California are legaly theirs, what say you Mr. Murphy?
2013-1455 = 558 years
Perhaps its time to move on, ya think?
Whatever issue there may be with European moral justification for taking native American real estate, it is worth noting that the native Americans themselves required absolutely no such justification when taking it from each other. Lot’s of weaker peoples succumbed to the Aztecs murderous rule, long before Columbus was born.
How ‘bout we just agree to not name the Vatican hockey team “Fighting Sioux”?
Skraelings, talk to the Vikings!
We had boomsticks. No decrees needed.
Did Nicholas V say anything about Casino compacts with States or tax-free cigarette and alcohol sales?
I guess the Onandagans don’t have much to do.
Maybe they can get the French to Renege on the Louissianna Purchase.
Discovery Doctrine was supposed to be used by the RCC to mark off territory for evangelization, not civil control. European powers with a fever for New World gold ran with it. The new pope will not do anything to refute the doctrine.
Had American aborigines the organization, the ships, the weapons, etc., they would have invaded Europe and wreaked havoc on those societies.
But they didn’t. Even the vaunted Iroquois were cannibals to boot.
Screw ‘em.
The only good indian is a Cleveland Indian!
In the U.S., the settlers found an almost empty continent, whose relative handful of inhabitants almost all lived by hunting, and who had few or no fixed settlements, nor, therefore, any solid basis for claiming title to the land, over which they merely roamed. And, even so, the settlers frequently paid the Indian tribes for the relinquishment of their claims to rights of hunting and camping. In this sense, they purchased Manhattan Island and many other, far more substantial pieces of territory from the Indian tribes. Thus, in the United States, it is true to say that the historical record of the overwhelming majority of property holdings in free of violent appropriation-that practically all property holdings can be traced back through voluntary purchases and sales to a point of peaceable appropriation from nature on the part of heir very first owners.
I’d like them to identify what land they owned versus simply gypsied.
Interesting that the leftist NY Daily News had this at hand as their first headline.
More info on Justice Ginsburg’s ruling, please!
If she ruled against the tribe based on the Doctrine of Discovery then this IS a very important issue to be understood and addressed. Thank you so much!