Page 18 - Msingi Afrika Magazine Issue 15

Re-Education

“taken to distant, non-Christian lands The potentates of the old world found no Indian Nation of New York, which
and used as a template, an authorization difficulty in convincing themselves that they maintained that parcels of tribal
for what I call a dehumanization and made ample compensation to the inhab- land sold and later repurchased by
domination of non-Christian peoples itants of the new, by bestowing on them the Oneida were neither tax exempt
throughout the planet. ” civilization and Christianity, in exchange nor sovereign. The decision preclud-
for unlimited independence. But, as they ed “the tribe from rekindling embers
These developments represented were all in pursuit of nearly the same of sovereignty that long ago grew
“the beginnings of international law,” object, it was necessary, in order to avoid cold,” Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg
said Joshua Jeffers, a member of conflicting settlements, and consequent war wrote for the majority.
the history department at Middle with each other, to establish a principle,
Tennessee State University who has which all should acknowledge as the law A more recent 2011 Supreme Court
studied the Doctrine of Discovery. by which the right of acquisition, which ruling severely limited a tribe’s ability
they all asserted, should be regulated as to sue the federal government over
Racism coursed through the doc- between themselves. This principle was, fiduciary trust indiscretion.
trine and the bulls that informed that discovery gave title to the government
it, Jeffers said, but its origins were by whose subjects, or by whose authority, In 2007, the United Nations issued
ultimately political, stemming from it was made, against all other European the Declaration on the Rights of
the “Vatican trying to come to governments, which title might be consum- Indigenous Peoples, a landmark
terms with the discovery of the mated by possession. document that provided what Na-
New World … and trying to head tive American scholar and attorney
off massive wars between Spain and The ruling maintained that Native Walter Echo-Hawk once called
Portugal” over gold. Americans — referred to in the a “human rights framework” for
decision as “fierce savages” and “the replacing the colonial MO.
Over the centuries, the doctrine conquered” — had the right to oc-
evolved. “In 1600, it meant some- cupy land, but not full sovereignty. The U.S., Australia, New Zealand
thing different than it did in 1650,” It stipulated that tribes were depen- and Canada initially held out on
he said. “It changed based on what dent on the federal government. signing, but have since endorsed the
the colonizer wanted to do.” U.N. document. However, “the thing
Johnson v. M’Intosh became the with these U.N. declarations,” Jeffers
In 1823, a turning point was reached cornerstone of U.S. federal Indian said, “is that they have no real teeth,
in its “ideological essence.” In the law, Jeffers said. Subsequent Mar- so countries quibble about what is in
U.S. Supreme Court case Johnson v. shall court decisions attempted to them.” Without “real enforcement
M’Intosh — which involved a land walk back some of its harsher provi- power,” the colonial model remains
dispute — “a new type of property sions, Jeffers said, but it remains to in place.
ownership,” was created for Native this day the dominant legal prece-
Americans, Jeffers said, “a lesser dent. “It sounds archaic and ridiculous,”
form of ownership.” Jeffers said, but it is reality, and it
“And not just in the United States,” has become “so deeply ingrained”
The Doctrine of Discovery, while he added, but also “in Australia, in U.S. society that it’s practically
not mentioned by name, was given New Zealand and Canada,” where “invisible — it’s just assumed.”
a legitimating stamp. Chief Justice large indigenous populations exist.
John Marshall’s ruling stated: “There are Canadian rulings that “If you take the Doctrine of Dis-
refer to the 1823 [U.S.] ruling.” covery away,” he said, “there is no
On the discovery of this immense conti- real, legitimate basis for [U.S.] Amer-
nent, the great nations of Europe were Indigenous activists maintain that ican ownership of any land.”
eager to appropriate to themselves so much the inequality perpetuated by U.S.
of it as they could respectively acquire. Its federal Indian law continues to leave [Vinne Rotondaro is NCR national
vast extent offered an ample field to the Native American legal claims stuck correspondent. His email address is
ambition and enterprise of all; and the in the mud. vrotondaro@ncronline.org.]
character and religion of its inhabitants For instance, in 2005, the Supreme
afforded an apology for considering them Court referenced the Doctrine of
as a people over whom the superior genius Discovery in the first footnote to
of Europe might claim an ascendency. the case City of Sherrill v. Oneida

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