The Doctrine of Discovery merged the interests of European imperialism, including the African slave trade, with Christian missionary zeal. Dum Diversas, the initial edict that laid the theological and political foundations for the Doctrine, was issued by Pope Nicholas V on June 18, 1452. It explicitly granted Portuguese king Alfonso V the following rights:
“To invade, search out, capture, vanquish, and subdue all Saracens [Muslims] and pagans whatsoever, and other enemies of Christ wheresoever placed, and the kingdoms, dukedoms, principalities, dominions, possessions, and all movable and immovable goods whatsoever held and possessed by them and to reduce their persons to perpetual slavery.”
This papal decree, and others that extended and developed its principles, provided the moral and religious justification for an unfettered European colonial race for “undiscovered lands” and fertilized the blossoming African slave trade. The most relevant papal edict for the American context was the bull Inter Caetera, issued by Pope Alexander VI in May 1493, with the express purpose of validating Spain’s ownership rights of lands in the Americas following the voyages of Columbus the year before. It praised Columbus and again affirmed the church’s blessing of and interest in political conquest, “that in our times especially the Catholic faith and the Christian religion be exalted and be everywhere increased and spread, that the health of souls be cared for and that barbarous nations be overthrown and brought to the faith itself.”
While the Doctrine of Discovery has escaped scrutiny by most white scholars and theologians, Indigenous people and scholars of color have long been testifying to these Christian roots of white supremacy, while dying from and living with their damaging effects. Indigenous scholars such as the late Vine Deloria Jr. (Lakota, Standing Rock Sioux), Robert J. Miller (Eastern Shawnee of Oklahoma), and Steven T. Newcomb (Shawnee/Lenape) have been highlighting, for over 50 years now, the centrality of this critical theological and political turn.
As I’ve continued my own reeducation journey over the last 10 years, I have come to consider the Doctrine of Discovery as a kind of Rosetta Stone for understanding the deep structure of the European political and religious worldviews we have inherited in this country. The Doctrine of Discovery furnished the foundational lie that America was “discovered” and enshrined the noble innocence of “pioneers” in the story we, white Christian Americans, have told about ourselves. Ideas such as Manifest Destiny, America as a city on a hill, or America as a new Zion all sprouted from the seed that was planted in 1493. This sense of divine entitlement, of European Christian chosenness, has shaped the worldview of most white Americans and thereby influenced key events, policies, and laws throughout American history.