According to the Huffington Post, some indigenous tribes are claiming that the Vatican has never repudiated 15th century documents comprising a so-called “Doctrine of Discovery” which claimed that it is a good thing to enslave and rob the indigenous tribes of the Americas. Specifically, they refer to a 1455 papal bull (written well before Columbus sailed for the Americas) calling on Europeans  “to invade, search out, capture, vanquish, and subdue all … enemies of Christ,” take their land and “reduce their persons to perpetual slavery.”

The tribes claim that the Doctrine of Discovery was never repudiated and colors Church-tribe relations to this day.

The problem with this claim, however, is that any religious justification for enslaving and robbing the Indians was formally repudiated in 1537.

In 1537, Pope Paul III issued a papal bull (Sublimus Dei) saying:

The enemy of the human race, who opposes all good deeds in order to bring men to destruction, beholding and envying this, invented a means never before heard of, by which he might hinder the preaching of God’s word of Salvation to the people: he inspired his satellites who, to please him, have not hesitated to publish abroad that the Indians of the West and the South, and other people of whom We have recent knowledge should be treated as dumb brutes created for our service, pretending that they are incapable of receiving the Catholic Faith.

We, who, though unworthy, exercise on earth the power of our Lord and seek with all our might to bring those sheep of His flock who are outside into the fold committed to our charge, consider, however, that the Indians are truly men and that they are not only capable of understanding the Catholic Faith but, according to our information, they desire exceedingly to receive it. Desiring to provide ample remedy for these evils, We define and declare by these Our letters, or by any translation thereof signed by any notary public and sealed with the seal of any ecclesiastical dignitary, to which the same credit shall be given as to the originals, that, notwithstanding whatever may have been or may be said to the contrary, the said Indians and all other people who may later be discovered by Christians, are by no means to be deprived of their liberty or the possession of their property, even though they be outside the faith of Jesus Christ; and that they may and should, freely and legitimately, enjoy their liberty and the possession of their property; nor should they be in any way enslaved; should the contrary happen, it shall be null and have no effect.

Here’s the key phrase: “notwithstanding whatever may have been or may be said to the contrary…”

In other words, this document is specifically repudiating earlier claims that the tribes were not worthy of full human dignity. And even more than that, the Indians are to not be robbed or enslaved even if they remain outside the faith. What could be a more complete repudiation of the earlier claims?

Moreover, the document condemns and chastises those who claimed in earlier generations that the Indians were subhuman and not deserving of their proper legal rights, and even identifies those who said such things about the Indians as “satellites” of the “enemy of the human race” (i.e., Satan).

So, it’s pretty hard to see how the indigenous tribes mentioned in the Huffpo piece think that the Church adheres to the older 1455 document. Indeed, it’s fairly easy to see what happened. The first explores came back from the New World, and in order to justify their thievery, told popes and bishops that the inhabitants of the Americas were awful brutes who were implacable enemies of the faith. Then, years later, after more reliable agents of the Church (such as Bartolome de las Cases) had a chance to actually meet some of these Americans, the later popes and bishops gained a more accurate view of the situation and proclaimed the Americans  “are by no means to be deprived of their liberty or the possession of their property.”

And certainly, to the extent that the Europeans adhered to the provisions of Sublimus Dei, it would have meant better treatment for the tribes than the tribes afforded each other. The Sioux and Cheyenne had few scruples about exterminating the Pawnee, and the Aztecs had no problem with killing as many Tlaxcalans as was convenient.

Now, people back then listened to popes and clergymen about as much as they do now. So, Sublimus Dei was thoroughly ignored by many government officials, clergy, and settlers in the New World who were more than happy to kill off whatever Indians happened to get in their way. Such self-serving violence is hardly unique to the time or place or culture in which it occurred.

So, if some tribes are looking for a repudiation of the 1455 document, they need look no further than the 1537 document. Plus, the sentiments of Sublimus Dei were reiteratedby Pope Leo XIII in 1888 when he condemned slavery:

Then Paul III, anxious with a fatherly love as to the condition of the Indians and of the Moorish slaves, came to this last determination, that in open day, and, as it were, in the sight of all nations, he declared that they all had a just and natural right of a threefold character, namely, that each of them was master of his own person, that they could live together under their own laws, and that they could acquire and hold property for themselves.

This line of reasoning was confirmed again in the 1960s by Pope John XXIII and in the 1990s by John Paul II.

As a final note, it strikes one as rather impractical to make an issue today of a 15th century document that was obviously repealed in the 16th century. Some of the tribes claim that American jurists used the documents of the Doctrine of Discovery to support their own efforts to defraud the tribes in what is now the United States. That may very well be true, but it is a bit silly to blame the legal traditions of the United States on papal documents from centuries earlier, especially considering the fact that 19th Century America was anything but sympathetic to the words of popes.

In fact, I openly advocate for the US government to return all tribal lands to the tribes in accordance with treaties in force in 1880. Unlike the pro-conquest papal documents of the 15th century, the American treaties with the tribes in the late 19th century were never overturned in any legal process that anyone recognizes as legitimate. That might be a better place to start.

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