Communicating Indigenous Justice: The Doctrine of Discovery and the Carlisle Indian School

The Indigenous Justice Committee of the Diocese of Central Pennsylvania and the Diocese of Bethlehem invites you to an online program exploring the Doctrine of Discovery, the legal and religious principle that granted European colonial powers sovereignty over the land and rights of Indigenous peoples. This history is especially applicable to our locale, as the Carlisle Indian School, located in Carlisle, PA, was the very first federal off-reservation boarding school for Native American children, with the goal of assimilating them into mainstream American society through a coercive educational system.

Participants will begin with an orientation, workshop, and community-building circle led by Sarah Augustine, Executive Director of the Coalition to Dismantle the Doctrine of Discovery, and Joe Hubbard, Organizer for the Episcopal Indigenous Justice Roundtable. Participants will learn about how the Doctrine of Discovery shaped federal and church policy for Indigenous land and child removal, and how it continues to shape the lives of Indigenous peoples and lands. Participants will also learn how the Doctrine of Discovery as a body of laws and policies in our own time shapes the lives of settler-descended peoples and the world we inhabit.

Register for this Zoom event here: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/gCUt5BRUTyiQWsXic2r2mA#/registration

This event ties into a two-part book discussion — happening on October 1 and October 8 — of Sarah Augustine’s book, “The Land Is Not Empty: Following Jesus in Dismantling the Doctrine of Discovery.”