Our nation’s natural storytelling instincts crave simplicity and clarity. As a result, we often turn to uncomplicated national origin stories or discuss white supremacy and racism as a black/white binary. These issues, however, are more complex than what I learned in school.

Rather than beginning with the colonies declaring their independence in 1776 from the British throne or explaining our racism from the introduction of the first enslaved Africans on American shores in 1619, perhaps — to truly understand the origins of modern America — we need to go all the way back to 1452.

The Hidden Roots of White Supremacy and the Path to a Shared American Future (2023) by Robert P. Jones begins with several clear and powerful stories and ends with a question that, though difficult, must be answered if we are to illuminate the path forward. Jones has crafted a searing yet courageous look at contemporary issues around race set within the context of a 15th century church doctrine that haunts our lives, laws, and politics to this day.

On June 18, 1452, Pope Nicholas V issued the “Doctrine of Discovery” that “merged the interests of European imperialism, including the African slave trade, with Christian missionary zeal.” That particular papal doctrine granted the Portuguese king the following rights:

To invade, search out, capture, vanquish, and subdue all Saracens (Muslims) and pagans whatsoever, and other enemies of Christ wheresoever placed, and the kingdoms, dukedoms, principalities, dominions, possessions, and all movable and immovable goods whatsoever held and possessed by them and to reduce their persons to perpetual slavery.

When Columbus returns from his first voyage in 1493, Pope Alexander VI extends this papal bull to validate Spain’s ownership rights of “previously undiscovered” lands in the Americas. Once again, all non-Christians are “enemies” and thus not deserving of political or human rights. They can be placed in perpetual slavery and their land and possessions can be taken over by Christian nations and rulers. The Doctrine also establishes a process whereby the competing European nations could make claims and take treasure without undue bloodshed among themselves.

Jones shows how so much of our law, public policy, history, and present-day politics revolves around this 15th century license to pillage and loot land that was granted by the person western Christians considered “the Vicar of Christ on Earth.”

The Doctrine is expanded over time so that it is used by Europeans and Americans to stake claims on indigenous lands and to marginalize and/or enslave those who lived there. William Henry Powell’s dramatic painting of Hernando De Soto’s “discovery” of the Mississippi River and his “claiming” of this land for Spain was all based on the Doctrine of Discovery.

When President Thomas Jefferson agreed to the 1803 Louisiana Purchase for $15 million, the U.S. was not acquiring title to this land from France. “Rather, it codified a transfer from France to the United States,” based on the Doctrine of Discovery, “of the right to assert dominion over Native peoples in that area without interference or competition from other European powers.”

Think about how that differs from the history we were taught.

As recently as 2005 in Sherrill v. Oneida, Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s first footnote in her 8-1 majority opinion declared, “Under the ‘doctrine of discovery’ . . . fee title to the lands occupied by Indians when the colonists arrived became vested in the sovereign — first the discovering European nation and later the original States and the United States.”

As Jones so eloquently asserts in this thoughtful and important work,

The spirit of the Doctrine of Discovery continues to haunt us today. We remain torn by two mutually incompatible visions of the country. Are we a pluralistic democracy where all, regardless of race or religion, are equal citizens? Or are we a divinely ordained promised land for European Christians?

After a powerful opening story juxtaposing emancipation from slavery with Dakota deportation, Jones has us visit three different communities with histories worth remembering.

• In the Mississippi Delta, the reader learns of the community’s work to address the history of the murder of Emmett Till in 1955. But Jones also reminds us of the eradication of native Americans in Southern states leading to the horrific Trail of Tears, all in order to create cotton plantations worked by enslaved Africans.

• In Duluth, Jones recounts the actions of an enraged white mob of approximately ten thousand people lynching three black men in 1920. But he puts it in the context of the largest mass execution in U.S. history of 38 Dakota men in 1862 and the brutal deportation of the Dakota from land that was supposedly protected by treaty . . . until that became inconvenient.

• And in Tulsa, Oklahoma, the Tulsa Race Massacre that killed hundreds and destroyed blocks of black-owned businesses in what was known as the “Black Wall Street” resulting in the destruction of generations of wealth was taking place at the same time that white Americans were conducting their “Reign of Terror” on the nearby Osage Indian nation to steal their oil and mineral rights.

Jones chose those communities for their entwined stories of white supremacy that go beyond the simple white/black binary, but also because each has taken steps to repair the damage and the relationships. That work becomes the basis for his final section on a path forward, searching for hope in history.

Jones, who was raised a Southern Baptist in Mississippi and holds a PhD in religion from Emory University and a MDiv from Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, writes with knowledge and empathy. Yet he also speaks bluntly about the question that must illuminate the path forward for us and for our children: How can we meaningfully respond to being beneficiaries of a crime so plain it cannot be denied and so large it can never be fully righted?

He doesn’t let his readers off the hook. “The paralysis that often cripples discussions of justice is a defense mechanism stemming from a lack of real motivation.”

While we are endlessly creative in fashioning novel ways to kill, disposses, and defraud others, we are hopelessly unimaginative in our efforts to balance the scales of justice. Greed spawns a million schemes, while repentance throws up its hands.

White Christians no longer represent the majority of Americans. But there are still more than enough to derail the future of democracy in America. In the authoritarianism of Donald Trump, we have seen which path millions have chosen. There is a better way forward.

More to come . . .

DJB

---

Related posts:

• The blood cries out from the ground (2023)
• Moving us forward (2023)
• Shifting blame (2021)

---

Image of De Soto’s “Discovery” of the Mississippi River in 1541 in the Capitol Rotunda