The Doctrine of Discovery justified English land grabs against prior Native presence

Evidence

The new American politicians and their British forebears believed that Native people should be treated simultaneously as citizens of nations and as members of lower-order societies. The Americans inherited a grab bag of strategies for dealing with Indigenous peoples from the English, who had generally viewed Native nations as separate political bodies with prior occupancy of the soil. But the British also saw Native people as unchristian “heathens” and as “savages” who had not actually developed the land in a civilized manner that would qualify them as rightful owners. The Doctrine of Discovery, a longstanding belief that Christian nations had the right to rule over non-Christian nations and their property, helped justify English imperialism despite prior Native presence. English officials as well as private buyers purchased Indigenous land by contract while also grabbing land through manipulation, coercion, and outright seizure in the aftermath of war. Because the English subscribed to the principles of the rule of law and the primacy of property rights, they used isolated crimes by Native men as rationalizations for large-scale attacks on Native communities. — Nikole Hannah-Jones et al., The 1619 Project, 466

Categorization

• DEFINE: Defines the Doctrine of Discovery concisely — the legal-religious justification for Christian nations ruling over non-Christian peoples and property.
• XREF: Connects to the reader’s core framing goal: legal-rhetorical justification precedes material dispossession, mirroring how the 1619 origin-story functions as ideological infrastructure. — connects to: Discovery of land granted title against rival Europeans but not against natives. — Supreme Court of the United States (Marshall Court, 1823), Johnson & Graham’s Lessee v. M’Intosh,…, 166; Discovery vested absolute title in Europeans subject only to Indian occupancy — Supreme Court of the United States (Marshall Court, 1823), Johnson & Graham’s Lessee v. M’Intosh,…, 259