The Impact of the Christrian Doctrine of Discovery/Dominion

American Indian Airwaves

Robert Miller, Julie Cavanuagh-Bill, and Steven Newcomb each present on the impact of the Christian Doctrine of Discovery/Dominion. Robert J. Miller (Eastern Shawnee Nation), an Associate Professor at Lewis & Clark Law School in Portland, Oregon where he teaches Indian law courses and Civil Procedure, a first year class. Bob has taught and practiced Indian law since 1993. He has also been a part-time tribal judge since 1995 for many Northwest tribes and is currently the Chief Justice of the Court of Appeals for the Grand Ronde Tribe. Bob has published numerous articles and book chapters and legal materials on Indian law issues and has spoken on Indian issues at dozens of federal, state, and private conferences in more than 20 states across the country. He has also been speaking about the Lewis & Clark expedition and the Indian Nations for the past three years and has published a book on the subject, Native America, Discovered and Conquered: Thomas Jefferson, Lewis & Clark, and Manifest Destiny. Bob became involved with this project in 2003 when he was appointed by his tribe to be its representative on the Circle of Tribal Advisors to the National Council of the Lewis & Clark Bicentennial. Julie Cavanaugh-Bill, Attorney and Western Shoshone Defense Project member and activist, has worked tirelessly to defend the traditional territories of the Western Shoshone peoples and nation as well as The Treaty of Newe Segobia (Ruby Valley) of 1863. Steven Newcomb (Shawnee, Lenape) is a legal scholar and one of the world’s foremost authorities on the doctrine of Christian discovery. In 2008 Fulcrum published his book Pagans in the Promised Land: Decoding the Doctrine of Christian Discovery. In 1992, he and Birgil Kills Straight (Oglala Lakota Nation) co-founded the Indigenous Law Institute. Newcomb has been studying and writing about U.S. federal Indian law and policy since the early 1980s. In 2015, Newcomb and Sheldon Wolfchild (Dakota) completed a documentary movie based on Pagans in the Promised Land. It’s titled “The Doctrine of Discovery: Unmasking the Domination Code” (2015).