“When Christopher Columbus first set foot on the white sands of Guanahani island, he performed a ceremony to “take possession” of the land for the king and queen of Spain, acting under the international laws of Western Christendom. Although the story of Columbus’ “discovery” has taken on mythological proportions in most of the Western world, few people are aware that his act of “possession” was based on a religious doctrine now known in history as the Doctrine of Discovery. Even fewer people realize that today – five centuries later – the United States government still uses this archaic Judeo-Christian doctrine to deny the rights of Native American Indians. (Steve Newcomb, Five Hundred Years of Injustice: The Legacy of Fifteenth Century Religious Prejudice, 1992).

Join John Dieffenbacher-Krall at the Boothbay Harbor Memorial Library on Friday, Sept. 27, 7 p.m. Space is limited; please call the library at 633-3112 or visit bbhlibrary.org/doctrineofdiscovery2019 to RSVP.

Dieffenbacher-Krall, chair of the Episcopal Committee on Indian Relations and former executive director of the Maine Indian Tribal-State Commission, will present a talk on the Doctrine of Christian Discovery and Domination, its effects on the Wabanaki and other Original Peoples worldwide, and a reevaluation of Columbus’ voyages to the Caribbean. The Doctrine has formed the legal basis for taking of Wabanaki land and most lands inhabited by the Original Peoples of the Americas (and Africa, Asia, Australia, and New Zealand). In 2007 the United Nations condemned the Doctrine of Discovery in the preamble to the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. Every member of the UN was in support, except Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and the United States. Join us to explore this facet of Maine and American history and the current effects of a medieval religious concept serving as the basis for US Federal Indian Law and international laws.

About the presenter: John Dieffenbacher-Krall has devoted his adult life to activism, community organizing, and social change working for environmental, multi-issue, and intergovernmental groups in three states in addition to his considerable volunteer service. For 12 ½ years, Mr. Dieffenbacher-Krall held the position of executive director for the Maine Indian Tribal-State Commission (MITSC). In his private volunteer life, John chairs the Episcopal Diocese of Maine Committee on Indian Relations, a position he has held since 2017.

John was the official representative of the Diocese of Maine at the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues in 2012. During the two-week gathering, he drafted and delivered to the body on May 9 the “Intervention of the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Church of Canada Offering Suggested Actions on the Doctrine of Discovery and Domination.” On May 30, he gave a talk titled “The Doctrine of Christian Discovery and Domination: How It Has Impacted the State of Maine Pre- and Post-Statehood” during the Maine Statehood and Bicentennial Conference hosted at the University of Maine.

Local tie in: The Nao Santa Maria will be at port in Boothbay Harbor Sept. 25-29. See the ship, attend the lecture, engage with history.