Robert J. Miller: "The Doctrine of Discovery and Indigenous People"

Friday October 3:
1:30pm Azrieli Building 302 Robert J. Miller: "The Doctrine of Discovery and Indigenous People"
Carleton University Robert J. Miller: Professor, Lewis & Clark Law School, Portland, Oregon, USA (Eastern Shawnee Tribe of Oklahoma) Robert J. Miller has taught and practiced Indian law since 1993, and has been a part-time tribal judge since 1995. He has published extensively on Indian law issues, including his book, *Native America, Discovered and Conquered,* focusing on the Doctrine of Discovery. *Abstract* North America was colonized under an international legal principle known today as the Doctrine of Discovery.  Europe used the Doctrine – which relied upon religious and ethnocentric ideas of European and Christian superiority -- to legitimate its sovereign and property claims over territories and peoples.  The Doctrine was relied upon in the Royal Proclamation of 1763 and the U.S. Supreme Court in 1823 in Johnson v. M'Intosh. This case is still relied on by Canadian, New Zealand, and Australian courts. Although Canada and the United States did not apply the Discovery Doctrine in exactly the same manner or at the same time, the similarities in their use of the doctrine are striking and revealing. Viewing Canadian and US politics in light of the international law of Doctrine of Discovery expands knowledge of North American Indigenous settler-relations in the past and present.