On the brink of America’s 250th birthday, questions of national identity and who discovered what
A 28-ton quartzite boulder sacred to the Kansa Nation bore a plaque honoring European settlers. In 2024, it was removed from Lawrence and returned to the Kaw People. (Photo by Clay Wirestone/Kansas Reflector)
On July 4, we’ll mark 250 years since our nation’s Declaration of Independence. I wonder whether this will be another celebration of white privilege, or will it include all who call the United States their homeland?
A little history:
The Doctrine of Discovery is a concept rooted in 15th-century papal bulls (formal decrees from the pope). These decrees gave European Christian powers the religious and legal authority to invade, claim and colonize non-Christian lands, paving the way for the subjugation and displacement of indigenous peoples worldwide. Indeed, it cleared the way for their disposal and disappearance.
After 1803 and the Louisiana Purchase, the Doctrine of Manifest Destiny was developed. In 1898 came the Spanish-American War, in 1964 the Vietnam conflict and in early 2026 the U.S.-led coup in Venezuela. This doesn’t mention planting our flag on the moon in 1969 and ongoing ambitions to inhabit Mars.
In 2023, the Vatican repudiated the Doctrine of Discovery because it recognized that these decrees were used to justify stealing lands and resources, contrary to the Gospel of Christ Jesus. Other institutions — notably almost all governments across our shared United States — have yet to consider doing so.
A lot of people have a lot invested in the idea that the United States is exceptional, the model for modern democracy. To suggest that genocide and slavery are central to how we became so wealthy and powerful, not just an unpleasant footnote, challenges that pride and makes people uneasy.
Without humility, pride is often arrogance.
In 1929, a 28-ton quartzite boulder sacred to the Kansa Nation was lifted from the Kansas River in Topeka for delivery to Lawrence, eventually bearing a plaque honoring European settlers.
In 2024 that red rock was rematriated, with apologies, to the Kaw People at Allegawaho Heritage Memorial Park near Council Grove — 168 acres of tallgrass prairie and historic tribal land from which they were forcibly removed to Indian Territory (now Oklahoma) in 1873. Places, not just buildings, are holy to Native Americans.
Extractive logic has always been a byproduct of the Doctrine of Discovery — the assumed right to the land and whatever minerals lie beneath it — whether for settlement, mining or agriculture.
This all brings us to Kansas today and the struggle between giant corporations and local communities over placement of huge data centers hungry for electricity and water. Who’s to say that corporate megaprofits should matter more than social equity or wildlife, pastures and places for human recreation?
I served in the Navy and, like many, I am profoundly grateful for freedom and the many opportunities given to me because I live in the United States. On the other hand, I agree with the celebrated writer James Baldwin that: “American history is longer, larger, more various, more beautiful, and more terrible than anything anyone has ever said about it.”
It’s one thing to realize that this nation’s behavior has come to mirror the actions of King George, whose usurpations we rejected 250 years ago. It’s another to imagine, envision and enact changes to bring about a more perfect union.
Together, this is how we dismantle the Doctrine of Discovery.
We are instructed in Micah 6:8 to act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with our God. Why are we here but to demonstrate to our children how to live with courage?
Dave Redmon is a retired journalist and educator reared in southeast Kansas and living in Manhattan. Through its opinion section, Kansas Reflector works to amplify the voices of people who are affected by public policies or excluded from public debate. Find information, including how to submit your own commentary, here.