Introduction

In 2012, New York Yearly meeting's Indian Affairs Committee brought to the Yearly Meeting a minute of conscience for the body's approval that repudiated the so-called Doctrine of Christian Discovery, a principle of international law that orginiated with papal bulls issued in the late 15th and early 16th centuries that granted "Christian princes" sovereignty over the lands being "discovered" in the New World and over its indigenous peoples.

Indian Affairs Committee

New York Yearly Meeting
Religious Society of Friends

Study Excerpts from
The Never Broken Treaty? 

Sarah Chandler, Canadian Yearly Meeting, 2001

(The entire speech can be downloaded here.)