We repudiate the Doctrine of Discovery, which asserted that lands [like Canada] belonged to the Christian powers that "discovered" them (The United Church of Canada)..There has been a growing chorus of hyperbolic cries that Pope Francis renounce this "doctrine of discovery" when he visits Canada in late July. Similar calls have come from the Anglican Church of Canada, Assembly of First Nations, Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada, and various indigenous leaders and activists..The motives behind this anti-conquest, anti-colonization movement are a desire for the return of indigenous lands, more indigenous sovereignty, and financial reparations for the loss of both..All three are based on shaky grounds. The roaming bands of foragers composing most pre-contact peoples occupied constantly shifting territories. Nor did they possess sovereign nationhood based on unique languages and cultures. As for reparations, they have been paid in the tens of billions since Confederation in 1867..The use of the term doctrine of discovery is itself questionable because it was never a term used to justify the age-old seizure or colonization of populated territories. Instead, there were papal bulls beginning in 1436 awarding newly conquered non-Christian territories to one European crown or another to avoid fights over the same lands..These papal bulls have been irrelevant for centuries. On March 5, 1496, King Henry VII granted letters patent to John Cabot and his sons to claim new lands anywhere in the world so long as they did not intrude on Spanish or Portuguese possessions. This newfound land included what became Canada..Thirty-eight years later, the French explorer Jacques Cartier, acting on behalf of King Francis I, defied Henry VII’s Letters Patent by claiming Canada for the French monarchy.. Jacques Cartier claimed Canada for France in 1534 .Also in 1534, the extrajuridical papal bulls were forever relegated to the dustbin of history by the Act of Supremacy, a law declaring King Henry VIII Supreme Head of the Church of England, replacing the Pope. No Pope, no papal bulls..The most critical piece of post-contact legislation that cemented British conquest followed over 200 years later with the Royal Proclamation of 1763 following victory in the Seven Years' War against France and Spain..Sometimes called "The Indian's Magna Carta," the Proclamation extinguished previous indigenous territorial rights and replaced them with the hegemony of the British Crown..Dozens of voluntarily signed indigenous land treaties flowed from the Proclamation, nearly all based on the surrender of traditional territories and tribal self-determination in exchange for material benefits, communal possession of lands not ceded to the Crown, and what is now Canadian citizenship. .Like other numbered treaties, Treaty No. 6, signed in 1876 with numerous Cree-speaking bands in Western Canada, reads:."And the undersigned chiefs on their own behalf and on behalf of all other Indians inhabiting the tract [of land] within ceded, do hereby solemnly promise and engage to strictly observe this treaty, and also to conduct and behave themselves as good and loyal subjects of Her Majesty the Queen [Victoria]. ".Accompanying reports written by the treaty Commissioners such as that of Treaty 8 made with several Western Canada tribes even stipulated that:."… whether the treaty was made [signed by the indigenous people] or not, they were subject to the law, bound to obey it, and liable for any infringement of it. We pointed out that the law was made for the protection of all, and must be respected by all the inhabitants of the country, irrespective of colour or origin.".New indigenous land claims also need to acknowledge that despite the practical existence in law and fact of fee simple land ownership, all of Canada, including the treaty lands of the indigenous peoples, has theoretically belonged to the British Crown since the days of John Cabot:.“The land of Canada is solely owned by Queen Elizabeth II who is also the head of state…. The Canadian Act has no provision for any Canadian to own physical land in Canada. Canadians can only own an interest in an estate.”.There is yet another challenge to the doctrine of discovery: pre-contact inter-group conflict and warfare. Historical documents like the 18,000-page Jesuit Relations (1632-1673) based on the reports of Roman Catholic missionary priests report that Canada's original inhabitants demeaned their foes using vicious quasi-racial stereotypes (from coast to coast); mutilated, tortured to death, and cannibalized enemies (prevalent in southern Ontario and Quebec); enslaved members of neighbouring groups (common among West coast tribes); massacred competitors for land and resources (widespread on the Prairies); and exterminated entire ethnic groups (as in the annihilation of almost all the Huron by the Iroquois in 1648-1649)..None of these panhuman activities -- conquest, colonization, ethnic cleansing, assimilation, and genocide -- were accompanied by any declared "doctrine of discovery" though they fall under the law of conquest, an age old principle only abrogated during the early decades of the 20th century..What today’s doctrine of discovery opponents ignore most of all is that, unlike so many other places in the world, including Western Europe where even the names of most preliterate indigenous groups disappeared millennia ago, the post-contact European treatment of Canada's first settlers involved neither genocide, nor slavery, nor ethnic cleansing, nor total assimilation, nor the extraction of tribute. Yes, there was the suppression of the North-West Rebellion in 1885 resulting in the notorious but haphazardly enforced pass system, but Canada had nothing resembling the many tragic Indian Wars in America. On the contrary, despite many small and large injustices from first contact to the present, European settlement starting in 1535 eventually resulted in: permanent pacification (the abolition of tribal warfare); the free and lively exchange of aboriginal products for European manufactured goods for 250 years; and an Indian Act (1876) and the Constitution Act (1982) – both rooted in the Royal Proclamation of 1763 – which defined, enhanced, and preserved the special rights and privileges of aboriginals..Warts and all, no country in history has ever done more to protect and enhance the well-being of its indigenous people..Given all these considerations, were Pope Francis to gratuitously renounce the doctrine of discovery next month, what effect could it possibly have except to increase hatred of Canada -- one of the greatest, freest, and most compassionate nations in the history of the world -- by growing cadres of radicalized indigenous and non-indigenous peoples uninformed about their own country’s past.. Guest columnist Hymie Rubenstein is the editor of The REAL Indian Residential Schools Newsletter and a retired professor of anthropology at the University of Manitoba.
We repudiate the Doctrine of Discovery, which asserted that lands [like Canada] belonged to the Christian powers that "discovered" them (The United Church of Canada)..There has been a growing chorus of hyperbolic cries that Pope Francis renounce this "doctrine of discovery" when he visits Canada in late July. Similar calls have come from the Anglican Church of Canada, Assembly of First Nations, Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada, and various indigenous leaders and activists..The motives behind this anti-conquest, anti-colonization movement are a desire for the return of indigenous lands, more indigenous sovereignty, and financial reparations for the loss of both..All three are based on shaky grounds. The roaming bands of foragers composing most pre-contact peoples occupied constantly shifting territories. Nor did they possess sovereign nationhood based on unique languages and cultures. As for reparations, they have been paid in the tens of billions since Confederation in 1867..The use of the term doctrine of discovery is itself questionable because it was never a term used to justify the age-old seizure or colonization of populated territories. Instead, there were papal bulls beginning in 1436 awarding newly conquered non-Christian territories to one European crown or another to avoid fights over the same lands..These papal bulls have been irrelevant for centuries. On March 5, 1496, King Henry VII granted letters patent to John Cabot and his sons to claim new lands anywhere in the world so long as they did not intrude on Spanish or Portuguese possessions. This newfound land included what became Canada..Thirty-eight years later, the French explorer Jacques Cartier, acting on behalf of King Francis I, defied Henry VII’s Letters Patent by claiming Canada for the French monarchy.. Jacques Cartier claimed Canada for France in 1534 .Also in 1534, the extrajuridical papal bulls were forever relegated to the dustbin of history by the Act of Supremacy, a law declaring King Henry VIII Supreme Head of the Church of England, replacing the Pope. No Pope, no papal bulls..The most critical piece of post-contact legislation that cemented British conquest followed over 200 years later with the Royal Proclamation of 1763 following victory in the Seven Years' War against France and Spain..Sometimes called "The Indian's Magna Carta," the Proclamation extinguished previous indigenous territorial rights and replaced them with the hegemony of the British Crown..Dozens of voluntarily signed indigenous land treaties flowed from the Proclamation, nearly all based on the surrender of traditional territories and tribal self-determination in exchange for material benefits, communal possession of lands not ceded to the Crown, and what is now Canadian citizenship. .Like other numbered treaties, Treaty No. 6, signed in 1876 with numerous Cree-speaking bands in Western Canada, reads:."And the undersigned chiefs on their own behalf and on behalf of all other Indians inhabiting the tract [of land] within ceded, do hereby solemnly promise and engage to strictly observe this treaty, and also to conduct and behave themselves as good and loyal subjects of Her Majesty the Queen [Victoria]. ".Accompanying reports written by the treaty Commissioners such as that of Treaty 8 made with several Western Canada tribes even stipulated that:."… whether the treaty was made [signed by the indigenous people] or not, they were subject to the law, bound to obey it, and liable for any infringement of it. We pointed out that the law was made for the protection of all, and must be respected by all the inhabitants of the country, irrespective of colour or origin.".New indigenous land claims also need to acknowledge that despite the practical existence in law and fact of fee simple land ownership, all of Canada, including the treaty lands of the indigenous peoples, has theoretically belonged to the British Crown since the days of John Cabot:.“The land of Canada is solely owned by Queen Elizabeth II who is also the head of state…. The Canadian Act has no provision for any Canadian to own physical land in Canada. Canadians can only own an interest in an estate.”.There is yet another challenge to the doctrine of discovery: pre-contact inter-group conflict and warfare. Historical documents like the 18,000-page Jesuit Relations (1632-1673) based on the reports of Roman Catholic missionary priests report that Canada's original inhabitants demeaned their foes using vicious quasi-racial stereotypes (from coast to coast); mutilated, tortured to death, and cannibalized enemies (prevalent in southern Ontario and Quebec); enslaved members of neighbouring groups (common among West coast tribes); massacred competitors for land and resources (widespread on the Prairies); and exterminated entire ethnic groups (as in the annihilation of almost all the Huron by the Iroquois in 1648-1649)..None of these panhuman activities -- conquest, colonization, ethnic cleansing, assimilation, and genocide -- were accompanied by any declared "doctrine of discovery" though they fall under the law of conquest, an age old principle only abrogated during the early decades of the 20th century..What today’s doctrine of discovery opponents ignore most of all is that, unlike so many other places in the world, including Western Europe where even the names of most preliterate indigenous groups disappeared millennia ago, the post-contact European treatment of Canada's first settlers involved neither genocide, nor slavery, nor ethnic cleansing, nor total assimilation, nor the extraction of tribute. Yes, there was the suppression of the North-West Rebellion in 1885 resulting in the notorious but haphazardly enforced pass system, but Canada had nothing resembling the many tragic Indian Wars in America. On the contrary, despite many small and large injustices from first contact to the present, European settlement starting in 1535 eventually resulted in: permanent pacification (the abolition of tribal warfare); the free and lively exchange of aboriginal products for European manufactured goods for 250 years; and an Indian Act (1876) and the Constitution Act (1982) – both rooted in the Royal Proclamation of 1763 – which defined, enhanced, and preserved the special rights and privileges of aboriginals..Warts and all, no country in history has ever done more to protect and enhance the well-being of its indigenous people..Given all these considerations, were Pope Francis to gratuitously renounce the doctrine of discovery next month, what effect could it possibly have except to increase hatred of Canada -- one of the greatest, freest, and most compassionate nations in the history of the world -- by growing cadres of radicalized indigenous and non-indigenous peoples uninformed about their own country’s past.. Guest columnist Hymie Rubenstein is the editor of The REAL Indian Residential Schools Newsletter and a retired professor of anthropology at the University of Manitoba.
