Christianity and Indigenous Dispossession

Amid the recent banter about whether or not Christianity is compatible with critical race theory, few are pausing to consider examples of the explicit legal linking of Christianity to racist practices. Let me do so by decentering the Black-White binary and focusing instead on Indigenous dispossession in the United States and Canada.

Here’s my thesis: The Supreme Courts of the United States and Canada explicitly link Christianity to racist practices of Indigenous dispossession.  

Consider the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in Johnson v. McIntosh (1823). There Chief Justice John Marshall grounds the United State’s power to “extinguish the Indian title of occupancy, either by purchase or by conquest” in the fifteenth-century, Papal-produced doctrine of discovery. Here’s Chief Justice Marshall at length:

On the discovery of this immense continent, the great nations of Europe were eager to appropriate to themselves so much of it as they could respectively acquire. Its vast extent offered an ample field to the ambition and enterprise of all; and the character and religion of its inhabitants afforded an apology for considering them as a people over whom the superior genius of Europe might claim an ascendancy. The potentates of the old world found no difficulty in convincing themselves that they made ample compensation to the inhabitants of the new, by bestowing on them civilization and Christianity, in exchange for unlimited independence. But, as they were all in pursuit of nearly the same object, it was necessary, in order to avoid conflicting settlements, and conquest war with each other, to establish a principle, which all should acknowledge as the law by which the right of acquisition, which they all asserted, should be regulated as between themselves. This principle was, that discover gave title to the government by whose subjects, or by whose authority, it was made, against all other European governments, which title might be consummated by possession.

The exclusion of all other Europeans, necessarily gave to the nation making the discovery the sole right of acquiring the soil from the natives and establishing settlements upon it. It was a right with which no Europeans could interfere. It was a right which all asserted for themselves, and to the assertion of which, by others, all assented.

. . . In establishment of these relations, the rights of the original inhabitants were, in no instance, entirely disregarded; but were necessarily, to a considerable extent, impaired. They were admitted to the rightful occupants of the soil, with a legal as well as just claim to retain possession of it, and to use it according to their own discretion; but their rights to complete sovereignty, as independent nations, were necessarily diminished, and their power to dispose of the soil at their own will, to whomsoever they pleased, was denied by the original fundamental principle, that discovery gave exclusive title to those who made it.

. . . No one of the powers of Europe gave its full assent of this principle more unequivocally than England. The documents upon this subject are ample and complete. So early as the year 1496, her monarch granted a commission to the Cabots, to discover countries then unknown to Christian people, and to take possession of them in the name of the king of England. Two years afterwards, Cabot proceeded on this voyage, and discovered the continent of North America, along which he sailed as far south as Virginia. To this discovery the English trace their title.

In this effort made by the English government to acquire territory on this continent, we perceive a complete recognition of the principle which has been mentioned. The right of discovery given by this commission is confined to countries “then unknown to all Christian people;” and of these countries Cabot was empowered to take possession in the name of the King of England.

. . . [The United State’s “civilized inhabitants”] maintain, as all others have maintained, that discovery gave an exclusive right to extinguish the Indian title of occupancy, either by purchase or by conquest . . .

. . . Frequent and bloody wars, in which the whites were not always the aggressors, unavoidably ensued. European policy, numbers, and skill prevailed. As the white population advanced, that of the Indians necessarily receded.

. . . However extravagant the pretension of converting the discovery of an inhabited country into conquest may appear; if the principle has been asserted in the first instance, and afterwards sustained; if a country has been acquired and held under it; if the property of the great mass of the community originates in it, it becomes the law of the land, and cannot be questioned. So, too, with respect to the concomitant principle, that the Indian inhabitants are to be considered merely as occupants, to be protected, indeed, while in peace, in the possession of their lands, but to be deemed incapable of transferring the absolute title to others. However this restriction may be opposed to natural right, and to the usages of civilized nations, yet, if it be indispensable to that system under which the country has been settled, and be adapted to the actual condition of the two people, it may, perhaps, be supported by reason, and certainly cannot be rejected by Courts of justice.

Do you see the legal linking of Christianity and Indigenous dispossession? Do you see the presumptions that Europeans are Christians and White? Do you see the linking of Christianity and whiteness? Do you see the presumed white supremacy detailed in terms of character, culture, and religion? And do you see how these conceptual ties frame Chief Justice Marshall’s contention that the U.S. government has the power to extinguish Indigenous occupancy titles?

Now, more briefly, consider Canada’s Supreme Court ruling in St. Catherines Milling and Lumber Co. v. R. (1887).  Drawing upon Chief Justice Marshall’s ruling in Johnson v. McIntosh, Lord Watson’s decision argued:

At the time of the discovery of America, and long after, it was an accepted rule that heathen and infidel nations were perpetual enemies, and that the Christian prince or people first discovering and taking possession of the country became its absolute proprietor, and could deal with the lands as such. It is a rule of the common law that property is the creature of the law and only continues to exist while the law that creates and regulates it subsist. The Indians had no rules or regulations which could be considered laws.

Do you again see the legal linking of Christianity to Indigenous dispossession? Do you see the white-supremacy saturated presumptions about European superiority? Do you see how those presumptions relate to Christianity (“Christian prince or people”)?

Johnson v. McIntosh and St. Catherines Milling make it clear: The Supreme Courts of the United States and Canada explicitly link Christianity to racist practices of Indigenous dispossession.