Colonial extraction justified first contact through preemptive legal-religious claims

Evidence

Extractivism began at the point of contact between the colonizer and the colonized. This initial encounter contained within it the terms of exploitation to be deployed as the colonizers explored and “discovered” new resources. Consider the Spanish Requerimiento of 1513, a document read by conquistadors to newly found subjects, who were abruptly informed that their lands belonged not to them but in reality to the spiritual leader of the explorers, someone called the pope, successor to Saint Peter and leader of the Catholic Church: Of all these nations God our Lord gave charge to one man, called St. — Nick Couldry & Ulises A. Mejias, The Costs of Connection, 299

Categorization

• SHARE: The Requerimiento is a genuinely obscure artifact — worth sending to someone interested in legal fictions or colonialism.
• XREF: connects to: Humanist defenses of native rights legitimized imperial acquisition; Colonial empire was read as proof of God’s favor on Christianity — Carl W. Ernst, Islamophobia in America_ The Anatomy of…, 169; Colonial treatment of native peoples was justified by claims about their essential humanity — Stuart Hall, Essential Essays, Volume 2: Identity…, 648 (+5 more)

Broader Connections

• Defending indigenous sovereignty helped legitimate colonial dispossession #corroborates (0.88)
• Humanist defenses of native rights legitimized imperial acquisition #corroborates (0.85)
• Assuming natives lacked economic systems justified colonial extraction misread as tribute #exemplifies (0.85)
• Colonial discovery was legitimized by symbolic acts of touching and appropriation #expands (0.82)
• Colonial empire was read as proof of God’s favor on Christianity #expands (0.80) — Carl W. Ernst, Islamophobia in America_ The Anatomy of…, 169
• Colonial dominion was justified as the natural right of those capable of ruling #expands (0.80)
• Colonial rule is justified as a benefit to the colonized and the West #expands (0.80) — Edward W. Said, Orientalism, 110
• Colonial treatment of native peoples was justified by claims about their essential humanity #contradicts (0.78) — Stuart Hall, Essential Essays, Volume 2, 648