Quakers renounce Doctrine of Discovery

Quaker Indian Committee disavows Doctrine of Discovery, affirms Declaration

By Gale Courey ToensingInspired by the actions of the Episcopal Church, a Quaker group has disavowed the Christian Doctrine of Discovery and voiced its support for the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

The Indian Committee of Philadelphia Yearly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends issued a Minute–analogous to a resolution–at its September meeting.

The committee “renounces the Doctrine of Discovery, the doctrine at the foundation of the colonization of Indigenous lands, including the lands of Pennsylvania. We find this doctrine to be fundamentally inconsistent with the teaching of Jesus, with our understanding of the inherent rights that individuals and peoples have received from God, and inconsistent with Quaker testimonies of Peace, Equality, and Integrity,” the Minute reads.

The Doctrine of Discovery was a principle of international law developed in a series of 15th century papal bulls and 16th century charters by European monarchs. It was a racist philosophy that gave white Christian Europeans the green light to go forth and claim the lands and resources of non-Christian peoples and kill or enslave them–if other Christian Europeans had not already done so.Comment:  For more on the subject, see Episcopal Church Repudiates Doctrine of Discovery and Those Evil Europeans.