### Menu

- [Home](/)

- [About](/about/) [Contact](/contact/)

- [Open Access](/open-access/)

- [Peer Review](/peer-review/)

- [Editorial Board](/editors/)

- [Journal Archive](/archives/)

- [News](/blog/)

- [Religious Theory](/religioustheory/)

- [Search](/search/)

- [Submissions](/submissions/)

### The New Polis

                    ![The New Polis is an online publication dedicated to critical theory, social analysis, and political philosophy and theology.](https://files.jcrt.org/images/tnp.webp)

The New Polis is an online publication dedicated to critical theory, social analysis, and political philosophy and theology.

                    ![The New Polis Journal is a peer-reviewed academic journal publishing cutting-edge work in political philosophy, social theory, and related fields.](https://files.jcrt.org/images/tnpj.webp)

The New Polis Journal is a peer-reviewed academic journal publishing cutting-edge work in political philosophy, social theory, and related fields.

	Whitestone Foundation

### Get in touch

The Journal for Cultural and Religious Theory (JCRT) is a publication of The Whitestone Foundation, a 501(c)3 non-profit corporation registered in the state of Colorado.

[Contact Us](/contact/)

---

[Built with Eleventy](https://www.11ty.dev/) | Design: [HTML5 UP](https://html5up.net/) | Maintained by [Adam DJ Brett](https://adamdjbrett.com) | [Credits](/credits/)

[Listed at Duotrope](https://duotrope.com/magazine/journal-cultural-religious-theory-20464?ref=lst-7vbKB-7r3u0g8&pc=L-7VBKB)

        JCRT
        The Journal for Cultural and Religious Theory

      JCRT

          The Journal for Cultural and Religious Theory

- [Home](/)

- [Archives](/archives/)

- [25.1](/archives/25.1/)

- Article No. 03

# The Doctrine of Christian Discovery and Domination: How It Has Been Used by United States Courts to Deny Treaty Rights & Dismiss the Haudenosaunee Land Rights Cases

            Joseph J. Heath
            Onondaga Nation General Counsel

               April 16, 2026

                 |  doi.org/10.17613/578sh-5t175

               Download Article

               Download Citation (RIS)

               Download Citation (JSON)

## Table of Contents

This article examines how the doctrine of Christian discovery and domination continues to serve as the foundational legal justification used by United States courts to deny treaty rights and dismiss Indigenous land rights claims, with particular focus on Haudenosaunee nations. Centering the Supreme Court’s decision in *City of Sherrill v. Oneida Indian Nation* (2005), the article critiques the Court’s revival of colonial doctrine through a fabricated “equitable” defense mislabeled as laches. It traces Sherrill’s jurisprudential roots to *Johnson v. M’Intosh* (1823), where Chief Justice John Marshall embedded Christian European claims of domination into United States law as a mechanism for Indigenous dispossession.

The article analyzes how the Second Circuit quickly dismissed the Cayuga, Oneida, and Onondaga land rights actions, despite undisputed treaty violations, constitutional breaches, and illegal land takings by New York State. These decisions reveal the creation of a distinct and shifting set of equitable rules applied only to Indigenous land claims, consistently privileging settler expectations over Indigenous sovereignty and justice.

Beyond domestic litigation, the article addresses the Onondaga Nation’s turn to international human rights forums, including its successful petition before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, and highlights the recent return of 1,000 acres of ancestral land as evidence that land justice is neither disruptive nor impractical. The article concludes by urging Indigenous law practitioners to directly confront and demand repudiation of the doctrine of Christian discovery, reaffirming treaty supremacy and international human rights as essential foundations for justice and healing.

© the author(s). Free to read; see the [copyright notice](/copyright/) for reuse terms.

          Keywords:

            christian-discovery

            christian-domination

            treaty-rights

            indigenous-land-rights

            european-claims

            ancestral-land

            indigenous-land

            colonization

            racial-equality

            land-justice

            indigenous-land-reclamation

            treaty-enforcement

            Share Openly

[The Journal for Cultural and Religious Theory (JCRT)](https://jcrt.org) is an online, peer-reviewed, academic publication published by [The Whitestone Foundation](http://thewhitestonefoundation.org/), a 501c3 corporation located in Boulder, Colorado. ISSN 1530-5228. Articles are open access under a [CC BY 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) license; authors retain copyright. Indexed by [EBSCO](https://www.ebsco.com/). Listed with [Duotrope](https://duotrope.com/magazine/journal-cultural-religious-theory-20464?ref=lst-7vbKB-7r3u0g8&pc=L-7VBKB). Website © The Whitestone Foundation dba The Journal for Cultural and Religious Theory 1999-2026.

[JCRT](https://jcrt.org/) | [The New Polis Journal](https://journal.thenewpolis.com/) | [The New Polis](https://thenewpolis.com/) | [Esthesis](https://esthesis.org/) | [Wild Globalization](https://wildglobalization.com/) | [The Whitestone Foundation](https://thewhitestonefoundation.org/)

[The Whitestone Foundation](https://thewhitestonefoundation.org/)