Sovereignty Against Colonial Ideology
In the United States today, one of the most pressing issues facing Native Americans is legislation that has debilitated their capability to attain sovereignty: Native American people have been victims of United States "plenary power," which has been used to, in essence, void American Indian treaties, acquire Native ancestral lands, and define their population as a "Domestic Dependent Nation," outside the protection of the Constitution.1 The origin of such oppressive legislation does not lie with the United States government, but the with the Colonial ideology, "Doctrine of Discovery." The Catholic Church, first implemented this doctrine in the "age of discovery," and authorized explorers with the divine right to conquer any lands they discovered that were inhabited by non-Christian peoples; thus, upon arrival in America, European explorers claimed "legal" possession of the territory. Shortly after the United States was formed, the Supreme Court incorporated the "Doctrine of Discovery" into federal law in the Marshall Trilogy.2 The Marshall Trilogy declared that Native claims to land were immediately forfeited upon Christian European discovery and defined them as possessing limited sovereignty. Furthermore, it has forced Native people into a "trust" relationship with the government in which they have entrusted the federal government to do right by them; being not under the protection of the constitution and not a sovereign nation, Native American peoples have virtually no legal platform to plead for their rights.3 Thus, it is evident that the inability of Native Americans to assert political sovereignty is due to laws based on Christian, Colonial principles.
In order to grasp the scope of the "Doctrine of Discovery," in United States law, it is important to understand it origin and original intent: In the 15th century, the bull Romanus Pontifex was issued to King Alfonso V of Portugal, from Pope Nicholas V, declaring the...