Summary

Chapter 11, “The Doctrine of Discovery,” begins in 1992, 500 years after the arrival of Christopher Columbus in North America. Several national governments, including Spain and the United States, chose to celebrate this anniversary in honor of Columbus. In response, the descendants of slaves and oppressed Indigenous peoples protested such celebrations, which in essence were celebrating the destructive history of colonialism. Underlying colonialist history is a legal concept known as the ‘Doctrine of Discovery,’ in which people could claim lands that they ‘discovered.’ This concept inherently ignored the existence of Indigenous peoples, and yet the concept “remains the basis for federal laws still in effect that control Indigenous peoples’ lives and destinies, even their histories by distorting them” (198). Many Native and non-Native groups have attempted to highlight the history of the Doctrine of Discovery, but the U.S. Government has consistently denied the unjust realities/impacts...