Did Pope Alexander VI Authorize England’s Colonization of North America?

Final version: Canopy Forum (Mar. 21, 2023), https://canopyforum.org/2023/03/21/did-pope-alexander-vi-authorize-englands-colonization-of-north-america/

CSLR Research Paper No. 9.2023-AFF

12 Pages Posted: 28 Feb 2023 Last revised: 21 Mar 2023

See all articles by Matthew Cavedon

Matthew Cavedon

Emory University - Center for the Study of Law and Religion

Date Written: February 23, 2023

Abstract

Shortly before Thanksgiving 2016, Episcopalian priest John Floberg held up a copy of Pope Alexander VI’s 1493 papal bull, Inter caetera, before a crowd of hundreds of protesters and clerics at North Dakota’s Oceti Sakowin Camp. He asked a committee of Indigenous elders to authorize its burning. They did, the paper went up in flames, and the crowd erupted in applause.

Why torch the text? Those present believed, as do many activists today, that Inter caetera was the basis for the English colonization of North America and later U.S. claims to the land formerly held by Indigenous peoples. Early American legal precedent took this view. But it is wrong as a matter of history. Inter caetera’s only function in English colonization was as a foil—a symbol of the narrow-minded, theocratic, Catholic Spanish foe. It’s time to set the record straight.

Keywords: doctrine of discovery, Catholic, Indigenous, colonialism, colonization, legal history, international law, imperialism, canon law, Protestantism, North America, English colonies, Christianity, pope, papacy

Suggested Citation

Cavedon, Matthew, Did Pope Alexander VI Authorize England’s Colonization of North America? (February 23, 2023). Final version: Canopy Forum (Mar. 21, 2023), https://canopyforum.org/2023/03/21/did-pope-alexander-vi-authorize-englands-colonization-of-north-america/, CSLR Research Paper No. 9.2023-AFF, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=4368656

Matthew Cavedon (Contact Author)

Emory University - Center for the Study of Law and Religion ( email )

201 Dowman Drive
Atlanta, GA 30322
United States

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