 Hello and welcome to creating a human rights culture which aims to promote a lived awareness of the interdependency and invisibility of human rights principles in our minds, hearts and bodies, that is, dragged into our everyday lives. What after all is freedom of speech to a person who is homeless and lives in a world at war? Therefore, it is dedicated ultimately to the application of the human rights triptych which in brief consists of the universal declaration of human rights at its center, the conventions, that is, international treaties on the right and implementation measures on the left. Hello, I'm Joseph Franca again and I'm here with Professor Peter Durico. He's a retired professor from the Legal Studies Department of UMass, Amherst. This is part two of our discussion on some of the struggles, the twists and turns that led to the endorsement of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People. So he has a bunch of slides here, I think it's about 18 or so, and he's going to talk about them, and the title of this slideshow is The Doctrine of Christian Discovery from Genesis to US Law, so the Doctrine of Christian Discovery. I'll throw a wrench in here at the beginning, but there's a quote from Chief Joseph that I like very much where he said that the humility and kindness of Christ is much like the spirit of the Indian. I'm sure that what has gone on, Christopher Columbus, according to Howard Zinn in his people's history of the United States, said that he would cut off the ears of the Indians for the Blessed Trinity. I'm sure this is not what Christ had in mind, but let me stop there. The show is yours, so this is The Doctrine of Christian Discovery from Genesis to US Law. Go on. Thanks, Joe. The Doctrine of Discovery, I imagine that everybody has heard about the so-called discovery of the New World by Columbus, and the Doctrine of Discovery has evolved in US law as the basis for what's called federal Indian law. It's actually the basis for US property law, and it is the claim by the United States that it owns all of the land that was discovered. So I want to unpack that, and the subtitle from Genesis to US law is a way of pointing to the beginnings of this Doctrine, which is not starting, has nothing to do with Jesus. It has to do with the biblical origin story. When I refer to God, I'm talking about the God that's mentioned in the Bible, and the story in the Bible that says that God made a covenant with Abraham that gave him other people's lands, the land of the Canaanites. So when we remember that, we get the beginnings of the thread of The Doctrine of Christian Discovery. And it may seem strange to go back that far, but I want to read a quote. It's under the title of the abyss. And there was a, Carl Schmitt was a legal philosopher, political philosopher, writing back around the 50s, and he said, and I'm just going to read this quote. You'll see it on the slide. And abyss separates us from the time when international law textbooks still spoke of Christian international law and the right of Christian nations. So according to Carl Schmitt, we're on the other side of that abyss, that Christendom, the power of Christian nations, is no longer the basis of international law. But what we're going to see is, we go through this little presentation here, is that in fact, US property law is based on the biblical origin story of a promised land. And that is the way in which we can see the meaning of saying Christopher Columbus was the discoverer. So Christopher Columbus, the name Christopher is Christ-bearer. So we keep in mind that even the name says the origin story, bearing Christ. Now, the Bible story about Genesis and Abraham and the Covenant is considered to be the part of the Jewish part of the Bible. And the Christian part, Christ-bearer, is the Christian part of the Bible. But if you've studied anything about the Bible, you know that it's the Christians presented as an entirety, the so-called Old Testament and the New Testament tied together. And that the Christians took on this Covenant and considered themselves to be the heirs of that Covenant so that the Covenant that God made with Abraham in the story of Genesis goes into the Jewish story because Abraham's firstborn son was the origin of what became Islam. The Islamic branch claims that Covenant. And when the Christians come into the picture, they claim the Covenant. So you have what I call the dysfunctional family of Abraham. You have the Abrahamic religions, all of them claiming they're the ones that got the Covenant from God. And so there are wars going on, wars to this day, 2,000 years of wars. So, but I want to back up to just the legal doctrinal story. Pope Alexander VI, one year after Columbus made his landfall here, I think of Columbus as kind of boat people, lost, trying to find his way, lands here, thinks he's in India. Always thought he had made it to India, never really changed his mind about that. But on behalf of Ferdinand Isabella, who were king and queen of what was becoming Spain, Spain was just coming into existence. It had pushed the Moors, the Islamic population out of the Peninsula, the Iberian Peninsula at the very same time that it was financing and sponsoring Columbus's voyage to the so-called New World. So Spain is in the midst of all this and it wants to make sure that it has the property rights because it's been in a dispute for a few years with Portugal over Africa and the rights to go slave hunting in Africa. And the Pope has already approved that and said Portugal can go do this. So the Spanish don't want to be left out. And when Columbus comes back and says he's found this land, the Spanish go to the Pope, Alexander VI, and he issues a bull, a formal document and just a few words out of it. He says, our beloved son Christopher Columbus discovered some remote islands and mainland and we by the authority of Almighty God do give, grant and assign forever to the kings of Castile and Leon, all of these countries. Provided, this Pope says, they at no time have been in the actual temporal possession of any Christian owner. So right at the beginning, the Pope as the arbiter of the highest power in Christendom, the Pope is higher even than the kings and queens, says, okay, I under my power from God, I'm going to give you that land. Just like God said to Abraham, I'm going to give you the land of the Canaanites and it's going to be yours. And the Pope is playing out that covenant story saying, the power that God gave me, I am now going to give Spain these lands in the new world. Okay, earlier, the ones that I had referred, the papal bulls I referred to earlier, 1452 and 1455, Pope Nicholas V had already set the precedent when he allowed Portugal to do slave trading in Africa. And he was also very explicit that this is a Christian venture. And just a few words out of the bulls, the two bulls that Pope Nicholas V issued, he gave permission to Portugal, the king of Portugal, to invade, conquer, fight, subjugate, the pagans and other infidels and enemies of Christ. And to put them into perpetual servitude, to appropriate their possessions and goods. So this is the principle, God gave Abraham somebody else's land. The Pope gives Spain somebody else's land. An earlier Pope gave Portugal somebody else's land. We see this thing being developed as a theme. And so it becomes a kind of a doctrine. But before we get to US law, one more quote from Nicholas V. He talks about the intrepid champions of the Christian faith. He's talking about the kings and queens and carrying out their missions to capture, invade and so on. And he says that this is to subdue the enemies of Christ wherever they are placed and reduce their persons to perpetual slavery. So we have here papal decrees approving slavery and land theft. But it's not called theft because it's called discovered. And the essential point is that the peoples who are already there are pagans, heathens and enemies of Christ. So they don't count. So now we jump ahead. 1823, that's a few hundred years. Chief Justice John Marshall, United States Supreme Court. Case of Johnson against Macintosh. It's a property case. It's a case where there's competing groups of land speculators, white people fighting over who gets to have the native land of the Piancashaw Nation, which is the area that we now call Illinois. And so Marshall says that when he makes the decision as to which group of land speculators is going to get it, and it's going to be, as it turns out, it's the speculators that did not go and make a deal with the native Piancashaw people. It's the speculators that were working with the US government that, he says, have the actual title. But he says that they have the right to take possession of this land, notwithstanding the occupancy of the natives who were heathens. So Marshall repeats this directly, the same papal language. He says that the Christian people have the title unless there was a prior Christian. Then the prior Christian gets it. And Marshall says the United States have adopted that rule. So in 1823, Marshall takes this. It's unbelievable in a way. If you've never thought of it before, he takes a 500-year-old papal doctrine that was used to justify slavery and the Spanish claim to title in the so-called New World. And he says, we're now adopting this in 1823, beginning early 19th century. We're adopting this into United States law. Joseph Story was a member of the court that made that decision. And in 1833, just a decade later, he wrote a very influential book to this day as regarded as an important book called Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States. And Joseph Story said, this is quote, the title of the Indians was not a right of property and dominion, but is a mere right of occupancy. We're back to thinking about Standing Rock. Whose land is this? And Story says, as infidels, heathens, and savages, they were not allowed to possess land as sovereign and independent nations. And he says, he concludes by saying the territory over which the natives wandered, he doesn't even say that they lived there, they used for temporary purposes and in respect to Christians, they were deemed to be brute animals. Now these are very high level, we have John Marshall, Joseph Story, these are very high level, very influential people in the development of US legal system and they are developing that doctrine at the beginning of the 19th century, which is the 500 year old doctrine of the papal rights of Christians and they're not making any, they're not trying to cover it up. They're saying it's because it's true, Christians have this right. Let's take another leap, 1954, we're getting very close now to our present time. The case of the Tijiton versus the United States, Tijiton are in the area that you were in, the area that's called Alaska, and the US government had sent in contractors to take timber, to turn it into pulpwood, to print newspapers. And the Tijiton had protested and said you're taking our timber. And you owe us money. And so they sued the United States. Well the Solicitor General for the United States, defending the United States against that claim that the Tijiton were making, this is what was in the brief that he filed. Wait, I'll just spend a minute on each slide because I'm looking out that time. Yeah, I will. Thanks. Okay. So, Sobolov says that the Christian nations of Europe acquired jurisdiction over the discovered lands by virtue of grants from the popes, the power to grant to Christian monarchs the right to acquire territory in which heathens and infidels live. This is 1954. And Sobolov says the natives only had a right of occupancy through the grace of the sovereign, the sovereign being the US claim. So when that case was heard by the Supreme Court, Justice Stanley Reed, who was not the chief justice, but a justice of it, he adopted the US argument and he said it's well settled that the states of the, in the states of the Union, the tribes who inhabited the lands of the states after the coming of the white man had only permission from the whites to occupy, 1954. And so they concluded the Tijiton get no money because they don't actually own anything, neither the land nor the timber. They just have the grace of the US that they can stay there. Yeah. So now we're going to make a big leap, 2005, the city of Cheryl versus the United Indian nation. This is what the, what the opinion of the court was, which was written by Ruth Bader Ginsburg. This will tell you, we're not talking about this as like all liberals are somehow in favor of native rights and all conservatives or not, Ruth Bader Ginsburg starts off footnote one in her decision says, under the doctrine of discovery, she now drops the word Christian in the 21st century, it's not permissible to remember what this is, the doctrine of discovery titled to the lands occupied by the Indians became vested in the United States sovereign. This is 2005, Ruth Bader Ginsburg in the case of city of Cheryl versus United Indian nation. In 2018, we're getting practically yesterday, the solicitor in a case called Royal v. Murphy, it was a case had to do with Creek Nation jurisdiction. He talks about the history of the US in relation to the Creek Nation is an intent to dismantle the Creek Nation and abolish its tribal organization and extinguish its tribal titles. So he admits that what was being aimed at, he called was the civil death of the Muscogee Nation. Now that language is the same language that is used in the international definition of genocide, which was developed by another lawyer, an international lawyer, Ralphie Lempkin in 1944. And he says genocide means a plan of actions aiming at the destruction of the essential foundation of a life of national groups. He said the objectives are to disintegrate the political and social institutions, the national feelings, the religion and the economic existence. That's precisely what in 2018 the US solicitor said was the aim of the US in regards to the Creek. And it's amazing to me that the Creek brief, in that case it hasn't yet been decided, it's actually still being argued inside the chambers of the judges, but it's amazing to me that the Creek Nation or anybody else called that out and said the US has just admitted that it's trying to commit genocide against the Creek Nation. And this stuff happens kind of under the radar, I guess, even though it's been blatantly said by the US in its brief. So also in 2018 the Yakim Nation filed an amicus brief in a case involving a conflict between the state of Washington and a trucking company that is a trucking company, it's not a Yakim Nation company, but it's a company that operates within the Yakim Nation and the state of Washington was trying to prohibit them from running their trucks on highways without paying taxes to the state. And there the Yakim Nation is the only case that I know of where at the level of the Supreme Court a native nation has called out the Doctrine of Christian Discovery and just a few words from there. The Yakim Nation referred to the religious, racist, genocidal doctrine of Christian discovery. A doctrine of domination and dehumanization. Then they said it is not welcome within Yakima territory and should no longer be tolerated in US law. And in the brief this is the first thing that they did and then they secondly referred to the treaty and they say that the solemn promises made in the treaty between the US and the Yakim Nation is the actual relationship, not the so-called power of Christian discovery. And when that case was decided recently, it was decided in favor of the Yakim Nation and here again just to confound people who are thinking about liberal and conservative, Neil Gorsuch wrote the opinion saying that the Yakim Nation treaty guaranteed their right to travel and not pay taxes to the state of Washington. And he says that if the state and the federal governments don't like the terms of the treaty they can try to bargain for more. But they do not have the power to actually just override the treaty. He doesn't deal with Christian discovery. There were two favorable opinions. They referred to the Yakim Nation brief but only in relation to the part with the treaty. And my sense is the strategy the Yakim Nation used actually was successful which is they present a brief. They say the court has two roads it can go down. One it can go down Christian discovery and they call it out and they reject it and the other is it can go down with the treaty. And when you read the opinions of the court they are not going to touch that live wire of Christian discovery and actually have to deal with it instead they embrace the treaty. And the dissent the part of the Supreme Court that dissented they don't want to name Christian discovery but they are there mired in that same old doctrine that the U.S. has some kind of you know superior power here. And so just to bring it right to a conclusion this is a language from Genesis. This is Genesis 12 1 verses 6 to 7 and 15 verses 18 to 21 if you didn't want to track it down. And this is the new international version language. The Lord said to Abram go from your country and I will show you other land. He says the Canaanites were in the land. The Lord appeared to Abram and said to your offspring I will give this land. And then the Bible actually mentions all the people the Canaanites, Canaanites, Kadmanites, Hittites, names all the people who live there that God says it doesn't matter they're there but I'm giving you this land. And it judges to another book of the Bible. The angel of the Lord said I brought you up out of Egypt and led you into the land that I swore to give to your ancestors. I said I will never break my covenant with you and you shall not make a covenant with the people of this land but you shall break down their altars. You have disobeyed me. Why have you done this? So this is not only a colonial God that gives the land but when the people move into the land and they coexist, God gets angry. And so they're gonna be chastised. Is this the Palestine? Is this what we call Israel? This is in this, exactly. This is what we're talking about. This is the roots of where the Palestine-Israeli is as happening. And by the way, since Palestinians and Israelis are all Semites, you can't say that it's anti-Semitic to talk about the conflict between them. I just want to say that you see already from these recent cases that this is still considered valid law that just a month ago I did a quick search on legal database called Westlaw. And there are 349 cases citing Johnson against McIntosh and the most recent one was in March, 2019. So this is considered to be valid U.S. law. And so the UN Declaration of Rights and conditions of People has also taken this head-on. And it says that the doctrine of Christian discovery is racist, scientifically false, legally invalid, morally condemnable, socially undust. I think that if you want to follow this up, you can look at a couple of books that Steve Newcomb, my colleague has done, one called Pagans in the Promised Land and a video he's put out called The Doctrine of Discovery Unmasking the Domination Code. So that's, I guess when this show is edited, those slides will be presented and people can see for themselves without having just hear me read this. Yeah, well I'll do my best. Okay, I'll do my best. But that leaves us a couple of minutes, but articulate and well said. One thing you forgot on your slide, I have them in front of me, that you're asking people to petition Pope Francis to rescind the papal bulls from the 15th century. Maybe you want to talk about that. He is kind of a liberal guy. There's actually a quite widespread movement, particularly in the US and Canada, petitioning the Vatican to rescind the papal bulls. It's been going on for a while. The Vatican claims that the bull no longer means anything, that it was superseded by later bulls, but it has never actually been rescinded. I want to say that's fine as far as that goes, but what I'm talking about is US law. Let's say that Francis decided that, yep, we're going to rescind that bull, that 15th century bull that said Christians can go and slave heathens and pagans. It's no longer going to be allowed to be Vatican doctrine. That does not mean that the US law has changed. US law is where, from my perspective, it's not wrong to ask the Vatican to rescind it, but the proper target has to be the operation of the doctrine in US law, which is why the Yakama Nation amicus brief in Washington versus Cougar Den is so crucial, is that they made that challenge within the US legal system, and they say they're rejecting that and that it has no place in governing than the Yakama Nation. That's where the crucial action is. Right. Well, I think if Pope Francis does rescind it, and maybe it'll eventually seek into our symbolic consciousness. Yes, indeed. It would be a very powerful act to do, even if you want to say, oh, it would only be symbolic because it didn't change US law, but it would make you, you're talking about shame and blame or something that sort of. That same force is working here. The Yakama Nation calls this out. It seemed pretty clear to me the court has suddenly put on notice. You're going to have to wait in some thorny thickets here if you want to go down that path. Okay, we have about a minute and a half left. Okay, any advice for the viewers? What can we do to improve the quality of life in general and or for indigenous people? Yeah. Any final words? You've been with us for close to two hours now, and I wonder if you have any. Well, I would, I guess I'd say what we've talked about already is that do some homework. Figure out that when you start with basic concepts that are confused and contradictory, you're not going to get anywhere. So try to pair back. If you want to talk about mascots, okay, talk about mascots, but in fact, let me say if you're in Massachusetts, you want to talk about the state seal because that's now another movement that's changed the state seal. Let's be clear. The bill that's actually in the legislature is setting up a commission to study the state seal, and the charge of the commission is to show how that if you misunderstood that seal, that was unintended and that the Commonwealth has always been dedicated to justice. I'm thinking, well, if that's your starting point, your study is already prejudiced. You're not going to really look at the history of Massachusetts. And I feel more like it's better to leave the seal and maybe put a stamp on it saying what's wrong with this picture? It's like the Confederate generals. Got it. Look at them. Thank you. Think about it. Got it, we got to stop. Thank you, Peter. Okay. Thanks everyone for listening. Take care of yourselves and take care of others as needs be. Hope to see you again. Thanks. Bye. Thank you.