The Doctrine of Discovery – Not knowing history, not knowing you are a fool

Professor Robert J Miller wrote the following paragraphs in the Seattle Post –the Intelligencer with the title ‘Lewis & Clark, The Doctrine of Discovery and American Indians’. 

‘Meriwether Lewis and William Clark sit high in the pantheon of American folk heroes. Even today, Lewis and Clark are viewed as brave adventurers who went where no one had gone before, exploring and conquering the wilderness for the betterment of America.

There is another way to view Lewis and Clark, however, which is nearer to the truth. Lewis and Clark were military officers serving American empire and manifest destiny and they were the vanguard of American policies that ultimately robbed the indigenous peoples of nearly everything they possessed.’

Many of the celebrated American pioneers like Davy Crockett and many more, were transformed in American legends as heroes but were in fact Indian killers and Indian land grabbers.  The brutal and systematic execution and termination of the American Indians were stories that western media did not like to brag about or did not have the stomach to write about.

I will just quote a few paragraphs from The Doctrine of Discovery and US Expansion to enlighten those who think they are enlightened on early American history and European conquest of the world.

The Fifth Amendment to the US Constitution in 1787,

‘The utmost good faith shall always be observed towards the Indians, their land and property shall never be taken without their consent, and, in their property, rights, and liberty, they shall never be invaded or disturbed.’

In 1794, ‘the US government sent a regiment led by General “Mad” Anthony Wayne to conquer a confederation of American Indian tribes attempting to keep hold of their lands. At the Battle of Fallen Timbers, a band of 800 Native Americans was slaughtered and 5,000 acres of crops were destroyed. ‘

In 1830, the Indian Removal Act was passed, ‘which authorized the President to remove the remaining Eastern Indians to lands west of the Mississippi. Between 1938 and 1939, under President Andrew Jackson, 15,000 Cherokee Indians were forcibly taken from their land, herded into makeshift forts, and made to march some in chains – a thousand miles to present day Oklahoma. Over 4,000 Cherokee died from hunger, disease and exhaustion on what they called Nunna dual Tsuny or the Trail of Tears.’

The rape of the Native Indians and their lands started in 1095 when ‘Pope Urban II issued an edict – the Papal Bull Terra Nullius (meaning empty land). It gave the kings and princes of Europe the right to “discover” or claim land in non Christian areas….These edicts treated non Christians as uncivilized and subhuman, and therefore without rights to any land or nation. Christian leaders claimed a God-given right to take control of all lands and used this idea to justify war, colonization, and even slavery…. In 1823, the Doctrine of Discovery was written into US law as a way to deny land right to the Native Americans in the Supreme Court… ‘

And in 1845, John O’Sullivan gave the Doctrine of Discovery another twist, calling it Manifest Destiny …’the right of our manifest destiny to over spread and to possess the whole of the continent which Providence has given us for the development of the great experiment of liberty…’

The Doctrine of Discovery, sounding so innocent, was the seed of European conquest of the world and the colonization of non Christian people, including butchery and massacres of natives and the robbing of their land. Liberty and freedom were only for the European Christians, not for the non Christians, not for the American Natives, not for the Blacks and not for Africans and Asians.

Know your history and absolve yourself from being made a fool of by the western powers and media.