INDIGENOUS RIGHTS: SEND PAPAL BULLS(HIT) BACK TO HELL id CAA00962; Thu, 9 Oct 1997 02:41:18 -0400 Via NY Transfer News Collective * All the News that Doesn't Fit source:"Boyle, Francis" 8 Oct 1997 18:53:09 GMT "Columbus Day" or "Discoverer's Day"?? DAY of INFAMY and RESOLUTION for Indigenous Peoples Worldwide A CALL FOR NON-VIOLENT ACTION Aloha mai kakou, A recent discussion on the kanakamaoliallies listserv in colony Hawai'i has stimulated a global call for indigenous peoples and supporters to symbolically burn duplicates of the 1493 Papal Bulls. These Bulls legally sanctioned Columbus' genocide campaign against indigenous peoples of the Americas. The colonial Spanish claimed "the bulls gave them the right to use just war to convert local populations who had refused to immediate- ly accept Christianity" (note: Bartolome' de Las Casas, "The Devastation of the Indies," 1552). Those who refused to conform were considered inhuman, incapable of reaching "heaven," and, therefore, better off dead! The use of "dominion," "conquest," and "discovery" as a means to justify the theft of indigenous lands was sanctioned in the name of Christianity. The Bulls of 1493 have yet to be revoked and help allow for the continual GENOCIDE against indigenous peoples TODAY. A movement to revoke the Papal Bulls has already been undertaken by indigenous peoples. In 1992, a delegation led by Steven Newcomb and Bergil Killstraight of the Indigenous Law Institute presented an an open letter to Pope John Paul II calling upon the Vatican to formally revoke the documents "to demonstrate solidarity with indigenous nations and to show willingness to honor and respect (Native) inherent rights to liberty, justice, and peace" (qtd. in Valerie Taliman, "Revoke the Inter Cetera Bull," Turtle Quarterly, 1994). No action was taken by the Pope. In 1994 Newcomb, a Shawnee/Lenape legal scholar who has spent over a decade researching the origins of U.S. federal "Indian" law, spoke on a panel at the Parliment of World Religions in Chicago attended by over 7,700 spiritual leaders and participants. A "Declaration of Vision" drafted by over 60 indigenous delegates at the Parliment reads, in part: "We call upon the people of conscience in the Roman Catholic hier- archy to persuade Pope John II to formally revoke the Inter Cetera Bull of 1493, which will restore our fundamental human rights. That Papal document called for our Nations and Peoples to be subjugated so the Christian Empire and its doctrines would be propagated. The U.S. Supreme Court ruling Johnson v. McIntosh 8 Wheat 543 (in 1823) adopted the same principle of subjugation expressed in the Inter Cetera Bull. This Papal Bull has been, and continues to be, devasting to our religions, our cultures, and the survival of our populations." A Call For Action Indigenous peoples and supporters are asked to have Roman Catholic churches and leaders around the world persuade the Vatican hierarchy in ROME to revoke these racist and inhumane documents (note: there were four Bulls issued on the Americas in 1493). In the Lili'uokalani- Gandhian-King tradition of non-violent action/resistance indigenous peoples and supporters are asked to symbolically burn copies (or tear them up if you wish) of the Bulls, specifically the second Bull "Inter Caetera" of May 4 provided below. An annual demonstration could be pursued until the original Bulls are destroyed. In Honolulu, the event will take place at the Catholic Diocese Office of the Bishop (the Cathedral), 1184 Bishop St. (at the top of Fort St. mall adjacent to Beretania St.), on Sunday, October 12 at 1 pm. Instructions? It's easy! Simply print out this message and clip off the Bull where it says "cut here." Then, make copies, distribute and burn (or tear) them at your local Catholic church. Contact persons: Tony Castanha Professor Francis Boyle University of Hawai'i University of Illinois Law School castanha@hawaii.edu fboyle@law.uiuc.edu Lynette Cruz Joshua Cooper University of Hawai'i University of Hawai'i lcruz@hawaii.edu joshua@hawaii.edu *************************** A brief history of the early conquest, a look at the "Doctrine of Discovery" as related to U.S. federal "Indian" law and, finally, the "Inter Caetera Bull of May 4, 1493 will be presented with historical introduction. The Taino-Arawak people inhabited the Greater Antilles of the Caribbean at the time of Columbus' encounter there in 1492. On Hispaniola alone the Taino population numbered between 7-8 million (Tyler 1988; Keegan 1992). Taino originally migrated out of the Orinocco region of Amazonia, settling in the so-called "West Indies" over 2,000 years ago (Wilson 1990). Described as the "peaceable Arawaks," they welcomed the white man carrying a cross and sword, only to be nearly exterminated shortly afterwards on sanction of Rome. The immense brutality carried out by the Spanish against Taino was nothing less than INSANE. One must ask, "Who really were the 'savage barbarians' in 1492?" Spanish priest Las Casas observed first hand many of the atrocities carried out in the name of Christianity: "And the Christians, with their horses and swords and pikes began to carry out massacres and strange cruelties against them. They attacked the towns and spared neither the children nor the aged nor pregnant women nor women in childbed, not only stabbing them and dismembering them but cutting them to pieces as if dealing with sheep in the slaughter house. They laid bets as to who, with one stroke of the sword, could split a man in two or could cut off his head or spill out his entrails with a single stroke of the pike. They took infants from their mothers' breasts, snatching them by the legs and pitching them headfirst against the crags or snatched them by the arms and threw them into the rivers, roaring with laughter and saying as the babies fell into the water, 'Boil there, you offspring of the devil!' ... They made some low wide gallows on which the hanged victim's feet almost touched the ground, stringing up their victims in lots of thirteen, in memory of Our Redeemer and His twelve Apostles, then set burning wood at their feet and thus burned them alive. To others they attached straw or wrapped their whole bodies in straw and set them afire. With still others, all those they wanted to capture alive, they cut off their hands and hung them round the victim's neck, saying, 'Go now, carry the message,' meaning, Take the news to the Indians who have fled to the mountains. They usually dealt with the chieftains and nobles in the following way: they made a grid of rods which they placed on forked sticks, then lashed the victims to the grid and lighted a smoldering fire underneath, so that little by little, as those captives screamed in despair and torment, their souls would leave them." Christian mythology, greed for gold, and racism were the basis of the diaspora throughout the Americas at the time of Colon and well into the sixteenth century. Of course, the genocide against indigenous peoples today usually takes on much subtler forms, but not always as suffered by Maya of Chiapas in 1994. For Kanaka Maoli in Hawai'i it means continual evictions from homelands in the name of PROGRESS, DEVELOPMENT and MATERIALISM, along with the indiscriminate desecration of sacred sites and burial grounds. For Yanomami of northern Brasil it means illegal gold mining and indiscrimate shootings in Yanomami territory, and death from Western introduced diseases. Yanomami just want to be left alone! "The root problem that indigenous nations and peoples face is that they are still being deemed irrelevant by nation-states, based on having been historically nullified under Christian international law," writes Steve Newcomb. In a paper titled, "The Evidence of Christian Nationalism in Federal Indian Law: The Doctrine of Discovery, Johnson v. McIntosh, and Plenary Power," published in the New York University "Review of Law and Social Change," 1993, Newcomb links up the doctrine of "dis- covery" with the Johnson case and applies its plenary powers to American law today. The central questions Newcomb ask are: "Should the United States continue to assert a plenary dominion over Indians and an underlying vested property right in Indian lands based on the historical fact that Indian people were not Christians at the time of European arrival? Should Indian nations and peoples be denied under United States law their rights to 'complete sovereignty' and an exclusive right of territory in their lands on the basis of Christianity?" He answers, in part, that federal "Indian" law today: "rests upon the Law of Christian Nations or the doctrine of discovery, which in turn rests upon the Papal Bulls of 1452 and 1493. If this is not enough evidence to convince you that this arrogance of Manifest Destiny continues today, there is now the infamous decision on 1991: Gitksan v. Canada, where the Supreme Court of British Columbia ruled that the Gitksan Indians had no standing because of the Law of Nations, better known as the Doctrine of Discovery. In this doctrine, religious triumphalism and the seizure of lands are intrinsically connected. Five hundred years of domination, exploitation, and self-serving law historically based upon these ideas are alive and well today." The Papal Bulls The "historical introduction" below is taken from Paul Gottschalk, "The Earliest Diplomatic Documents on America: The Papal Bulls of 1493 and the Treaty of Tordesillas Reproduced and Translated," 1927. The second Bull "Inter Caetera" of May 4, 1493 is provided by Henry Steele Commager (ed.), "Documents of American History," 1963. This voluminous 746 page documentation of "U.S" history somehow begins in 1492. Both sources are copied verbatim. Historical Introduction Returning from his first voyage, Columbus landed on the Portuguese coast and was at once invited to Court. He reached Lisbon March 4, 1493, upon the invitation of the King of Portugal. On hearing his report, King John II claimed the newly discovered lands for Portugal by virtue of the Treaty of Alcacovas of 1479, sanctioned by the Bulls of Pope Sixtus IV, dated June 21, 1481. The text of the Treaty and the Bull contain some slight variations and thereby allow of different interpretations. It is difficult to decide, therefore, whether this claim of the Portuguese King was justified. Contemporary as well as modern historians have always differed widely in their opinions. It is generally believed that, with his famous message on his discoveries, Columbus dispatched to the Spanish Kings, who were at Barcelona, a report on the difficulties raised by the Portuguese King, but it is questioned whether this was sent from Lisbon by land or from Palos after having reached the latter port, March 14, 1493. King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella of Spain reported the great news at once to Pope Alexander VI. It is again doubtful whether this was done by a special messenger or by a courier sent to Cardinal Bernardin de Carvajal and to Ruiz de Medina, then Spanish ambassadors at the Holy See, and whether this was done in consequence of the Portuguese claims or according to a general custom of that period. Pope Alexander VI, himself a Spaniard, granted the request to confer the lately discovered lands on the Crown of Spain by three Bulls issued on May 3 and May 4 1493 (all much in favor of Spain, and depriving Portugal of nearly all privileges bestowed upon it by the Bulls of 1452 and 1454, issued by Nicholas V, and by that of 1481 of Sixtus IV and one of 1484 of Innocentius VIII). Some months later, on September 26, 1493, a fourth Bull was issued granting to Spain almost unlimited rights. But this act remained without consequence; for in the meantime, at the suggestion of the King of Spain, it was agreed that, to avoid complications already threatening, a conference should be held. Portuguese ambassadors were sent to Barcelona and, after many negotiations and some interruptions, a settlement was finally reached at the small Spanish town of Tordesillas and a treaty was signed on June 7, 1494. Obviously inspired by the corresponding passage in the second Bull "Inter caetera", but not referring to this or any other bulls or treaties, it was provided that there should be drawn a line running from North to South, 370 leagues west from Cape Verde Islands, and that everything west of this line should belong to Spain, everything east of it to Portugal. The sanction, which by the terms of the Treaty was to be asked, was never given by Alexander VI and not before the 24th of January, 1506, was a Bull to such effect issued by Pope Julius II. Although much disputed and very differently interpreted, this Treaty remained in force until January 13, 1750, when the Treaty of Madrid annulled the boundary line. It would seem, however, that this boundary line, first provided for in the second Bull "Inter caetera" and later corrected in the Treaty of Tordesillas, decided what parts of the western hemisphere as well as which regions of the eastern hemisphere were discovered, possessed and civilized by Spain and by Portugal respectively, and which still speak the language and show the influence of the culture of their first discoverers. .............................oOo ...................................... The Papal Bull "Inter Caetera" of May 4, 1493 Alexander, bishop, servant of the servants of God, to the illustrious sovereigns, our very dear son in Christ, Ferdinand, king, and our very dear daughter in Christ, Isabella, queen of Castile. . . . We have indeed learned that you, who for a long time had intended to seek out and discover certain islands and mainlands remote and unknown and not hitherto discovered by others, to the end that you might bring to the worship of our Redeemer and the profession of the Catholic faith their residents and inhabitants, having been up to the present time greatly engaged in the siege and recovery of the kingdom itself of Granada were unable to accomplish this holy and praiseworthy purpose; but the said kingdom having at length been regained, as was pleasing to the Lord, with a wish to fulfill your desire, chose our beloved son, Christopher Columbus . . . whom you furnished with ships and men equipped for like designs, not without the greatest hardships, dangers, and expenses, to make diligent quest for these remote and unknown mainlands and islands through the sea, where hitherto no one had sailed; and they at length with divine aid and with the utmost diligence sailing in the ocean sea, discovered certain very remote islands and even mainlands that hitherto had not been discovered by others; wherein dwell very many peoples living in peace, and, as reported, going unclothed, and not eating flesh. . . . Wherefore, as becomes Catholic kings and princes . . . you have purposed . . . to bring under your sway the said mainlands and islands. . . . And in order that you may enter upon so great an undertaking with greater readiness and heartiness endowed with benefit of our apostolic favor, we, of our own accord, not at your instance nor the request of anyone else in your regard, but out of our own sole largess and certain knowledge and out of the fullness of our apostolic power, by the authority of Almighty God conferred upon us in blessed Peter and of the vicarship of Jesus Christ, which we hold on earth, do by tenor of these presents, should any of said islands have been found by your envoys and captains, give, grant, and assign to you and your heirs and successors, kings of Castile and Leon, forever, together with all their dominions, cities, camps, places, and villages, and all rights, jurisdictions, and appur- tenances, all islands and mainlands found and to be found, discovered and to be discovered towards the west and the south, by drawing and establishing a line from the Arctic pole, namely the north, to the Antartic pole, namely the south, no matter whether the said mainlands and islands are found and to be found in the direction of India or towards any other quarter, the said line to be distant one hundred leagues towards the west and south from any of the islands commonly known as the Azores and Cape Verde. With this proviso, however, that none of the islands and mainlands, found and to be found, discovered and to be discovered, beyond that said line towards the west and south, be in the actual possession of any Christian king or prince up to the birthday of our Lord Jesus Christ just past from which the present year 1493 begins. . . . Furthermore, under penalty of excommunication LATE SENTENTIE to be incurred IPSO FACTO, should anyone thus contravene, we strictly forbid all persons of whatsoever rank, even imperial and royal, or of whatsoever estate, degree, order, or condition, to dare without your special permit or that of your aforesaid heirs and suc- cessors, to go for the purpose of trade or any other reason to the islands or mainlands . . . apostolic constitutions and ordinances and other decrees whatsoever to the contrary notwithstanding. . . . Let no one therefore, infringe, or with rash boldness contravene, this our recommendation, exhortation, requisition, gift, grant, assignment, constitution, deputation, decree, mandate, prohibition, and will. Should anyone presume to attempt this, be it known to him that he will incur the wrath of Almighty God and of the blessed apostles Peter and Paul. Given at Rome, at St. Peter's, in the year of the incarnation of our lord 1493, the fouth of May, and the first year of our pontificate. REVOKE THE BULLS! INDIGENOUS PEOPLES HAVE MUCH TO OFFER HUMANITY! ================================================================= NY Transfer News Collective * A Service of Blythe Systems Since 1985 - Information for the Rest of Us 339 Lafayette St., New York, NY 10012 http://www.blythe.org e-mail: nyt@blythe.org ================================================================= nytcamer-10.09.97-02:41:37-16411