About Oregon, Indigenous Nations, Manifest Destiny, and the Doctrine of Discovery
Presented by Robert J. Miller
The “Doctrine of Discovery” is the modern-day name for the
international law principle that European nations used to claim most of the
non-European world. The Doctrine was applied against Native peoples in North
America by England, France, Spain, Holland, and Russia. The United States
adopted this legal principle and used it to claim the Oregon Country from other
European countries and from the Indian Nations. This talk will explain the
elements, or factors, that make up this international law and argue that the
Doctrine of Discovery morphed into “American Manifest Destiny” and was used,
and is still being used today, to justify the United States’ acquisition of the
lands and assets of the Indian Nations and peoples.
About the Speaker:
Robert J. Miller is a professor at ASU College of Law. He is a
justice on the Grand Ronde Tribe Court of Appeals and the Pascua Yaqui Tribe
Court of Appeals, and was appointed in June 2016 to the Navajo Nation Council
of Economic Advisors. He was elected to the American Philosophical Society in
2014 and to the American Law Institute in 2012. He is the author of three
books: Discovering Indigenous Lands: The Doctrine of Discovery in the
English Colonies; Reservation Capitalism: Economic Development in Indian
Country and Native America, Discovered and Conquered: Thomas Jefferson,
Lewis and Clark and Manifest Destiny. Bob is a citizen of the Eastern
Shawnee Tribe of Oklahoma.
Photo Credit:
John Gast, American Progress, 1872; Chromolithograph published by
George A, Crofutt.
Source: Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress.
