- The Doctrine of Discovery allowed the Crown to claim sovereignty over Indigenous Peoples and land by holding that Indigenous Peoples cannot claim ownership of land. It does concede a restricted title (an ‘Aboriginal title’) to rights of occupation and land use; and,
- The legal doctrine of Terra Nullius, land that is legally deemed to be unoccupied or uninhabited, allowed for the Crown to grant land to its colonial interests, including 70-80% of Canada’s land mass to the Hudson Bay Company.
The Doctrine of Discovery finds its root in the 1455 papal bull Romanus Pontifex of the Roman Catholic Church. Pope Nicholas V authorized the conquest and enslavement of non-Christian Indigenous Peoples for the purposes of land acquisition and profit from natural resources.
Terra Nullius finds its legal root in eighteenth century European law, but the concept was used to justify the right to colonize Indigenous lands throughout the sixteenth to twentieth centuries. –Source: Christian Aboriginal Infrastructure Developments
The Anglican Church of Canada put together this hour long video explaining just what papal letter centuries ago by Pope Nicholas V had and continues to have on Indigenous rights, or rather lack of. How a man and a religion just by saying so, took over a land and deemed its inhabitants savages simply because they were not Catholic or the right colour.
Our laws that still right now amount to “legal fiction”– that is with no basis at all in actual law.