OPINION: Can you boil down 500 years of Western colonisation to a single doctrine?
Some academics think so. But as an historian of New Zealand and the wider British empire, I’m not one of them.
Several scholars and critics have recently called on the New Zealand Government and King Charles III to formally reject the ‘Doctrine of Discovery’, a legal concept introduced in 1452 by Pope Nicholas V that is seen as a justification for colonisation.
While Christian churches must take seriously the many ways in which they are implicated by the history of settler colonisation, I’m not convinced the Doctrine of Discovery merits a place on that list.
A sound understanding of history means rejecting simplistic, one-dimensional explanations for complex phenomena.
A legal or papal ‘doctrine’ is not likely to rank among these explanations, especially since many European states rejected the authority of the Pope after the Protestant Reformation of the 16th century.
Doctrine of Discovery’s aims misunderstood
A basic notion of discovery did form part of an early system of international law from the 15th century. But there is good evidence that this doctrine’s main aim was to prevent conflict between European states in the early modern era.
Basically, if a state discovered a new land ahead of its European rivals, that gave it a prior or monopoly right in those territories – but only against other European states.
Crucially, a right stemming from such ‘discovery’ did not mean that western states could simply seize indigenous land or territory.
In fact, the recent arguments made about a Doctrine of Discovery make little sense of the whole history of European powers making treaties for trade, acquisition of land, cession of sovereignty, or control of tax revenues, including with non-Western peoples.
A right to simply conquer or take possession was not assumed.
By the early 19th century, British colonial expansion had been tempered by influential anti-slavery and aboriginal protection movements.
Captain Hobson proclaimed British sovereignty over New Zealand in May 1840, and the primary basis for that was the treaty – Te Tiriti o Waitangi. The Colonial Office had instructed Captain Hobson that the consent of Māori was a necessary precondition for the establishment of British government. (Captain Cook’s ‘discovery’ of the South Island was used as a backstop while treaty signatures from Te Waipounamu were still being obtained.)
Even based solely on the New Zealand story, the argument that a single doctrine drove Western colonisation does not fit the facts.
Other ideas and ‘doctrines’ were also in play and run at cross-purposes to the alleged operation of the Doctrine of Discovery: for example, the doctrine of human dignity and equality in the Christian New Testament – that there is ‘neither Jew nor Greek, Barbarian nor Scythian’.
Such doctrines also regulated European relations with other peoples. But so did human greed and will to power.
Does it make sense to rescind the doctrine?
The recent arguments about (or against) the Doctrine of Discovery seem to include a moral claim that the very idea of discovery is illegitimate.
But is it really discovery that is illegitimate, or what you do when you get there?
Many territories throughout human history have been discovered or ‘found’ in the simple sense – both lands unoccupied and those already occupied.
The argument for indigenous rights is at least partly a claim that first discovery or occupation is the best claim to territory – a solid claim according to postcolonial formulae and the ancient Roman law of the ‘first taker’.
Leading Kai Tahu scholar Te Maire Tau has observed that Māori discovered and named New Zealand/Aotearoa, and this was a historical process of identifying with a new landscape.
British colonisers did the same – it was when they did this without regard to the pre-existing names, histories, and people that their presence became problematic (though in many instances, of course, Māori names were retained).
We can accept that the Doctrine of Discovery was a doctrine of Western colonisation that has something to do with indigenous dispossession. But would it be meaningful in 2023 for the New Zealand or UK Crown to “rescind it”?
The papacy itself has recently concluded that it should. But in Nu-Tirani (New Zealand), claims to resolve colonial injustice have usually been couched on the grounds of a breach of the treaty (certainly since the 1970s).
This assumes the Crown took on real obligations under te Tiriti o Waitangi: obligations to protect or guarantee Māori rights (article 2) were mirrored by the Crown’s power to govern (article 1).
The bulk of our political history and treaty discourse is premised on the notion that the Crown does govern the country and has the obligations of a government towards its citizens.
Hence, the illegitimate taking away of land (and status and control of taonga) from Māori demands treaty redress.
Hapū/iwi and the Crown have been on that settlements track for three decades now, and significant redress mechanisms of international note have been devised including the co-management (co-governance) arrangements over the Whanganui River and Te Urewera.
The Church’s role
What about the Church in all this? After all, the Doctrine of Discovery was an idea thought up by Christian empires. The Church in Aotearoa New Zealand has a real reason to take responsibility for injustices of the past – especially where it was involved or implicated.
Christian missionaries, humanitarian activists and church leaders have frequently been at the forefront of defending Māori rights and culture – not least in advocating for te Tiriti. Biblical ideas of law and kingship were drawn upon by Māori leaders to resist colonisation.
Many Christians have been involved in the treaty settlement process, either in originally advocating for resolution of historical claims, or in working for Crown, Māori or Tribunal in hearings or negotiation processes.
It was Christ who commanded us to seek reconciliation, while making restitution is also founded on a recognition of the moral blameworthiness of historic actions. These are religious notions, not secular ones.
But there is one aspect of the Doctrine of Discovery that can be meaningfully renounced, including by people of Christian conviction: the notion of the superiority of Western civilisation.
Technological and political superiority was often mistakenly equated with moral, cultural, and even biological superiority, which provoked Westerners to act immorally or unjustly towards other peoples, and perpetuated racial hierarchies and stereotypes.
The idea that historical actions will be called to account is another inheritance of Christian theology. It would be better, on those grounds, to ‘renounce superiority’ and put things right now, rather than wait for the millennium or utopia to come.
We should not expect the state alone to do this. This work of reconciliation, of treaty justice, is for all of us.
Dr Samuel Carpenter has a PhD in history, lectures in New Zealand and church history (Laidlaw College and St John’s College), and has worked in the Wellington treaty sector.
