Grades 6–12 | Aurora Homeschool Academy · BleuLearn Curriculum
This volume documents: The documented legal architecture of colonial expansion — Pope Nicholas V's Dum Diversas (1452), which authorized permanent enslavement of non-Christians 40 years before Columbus sailed; and Johnson v. McIntosh (1823), which made the Doctrine of Discovery operative American law. Colonialism was not accidental. It was planned and legally authorized.
Background context: The Doctrine of Discovery holds that European nations gained legal ownership of lands simply by "discovering" them — regardless of the people already living there. In 1823, the U.S. Supreme Court cited this doctrine in Johnson v. McIntosh to deny Native Americans the right to sell their own land to private citizens. This doctrine remained operative U.S. law into the 21st century. The United Nations formally repudiated it in the 2007 Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.
The Primary Source
The Document Says
Dum Diversas, Pope Nicholas V, June 18, 1452
Vatican Archives. English translation at Fordham University Medieval Sourcebook (sourcebooks.fordham.edu).
"We grant you by these present documents, with our Apostolic Authority, full and free permission to invade, search out, capture, and subjugate the Saracens and pagans and any other unbelievers... and to reduce their persons to perpetual slavery."
Apply the Four Questions
The Four Questions: (1) Who wrote it? (2) When? (3) What does it say? (4) Why does it matter? Use specific words from the document in every answer.
Q1 — Who wrote it? What authority did the Pope carry in 1452 — legal, religious, and political? Who received this document? What did it authorize them to do?
Q2 — When? 1452 — 40 years before Columbus. What does this timing document about the legal groundwork for what followed? Why does it matter that this was written before Columbus sailed?
Q3 — What does it say? Find the exact phrase that authorizes permanent enslavement. Write it here. What populations does it explicitly include? What does "Apostolic Authority" mean as a legal justification?
Q4 — Why does it matter? The U.S. Supreme Court cited Doctrine of Discovery logic in 1823, 371 years after this document. What does that documented connection tell you about how a 1452 papal document became 19th-century American law? What does it tell you about colonialism as a legal system?
Claim–Evidence–Warrant
Write one paragraph: Make a claim about the legal architecture of colonialism. Cite Dum Diversas as evidence. Explain the connection between 1452 and 1823 (warrant).
BleuLearn Pause
What does this primary source document that a textbook's description of the same event would not?
Archive Assignment
Access the Fordham University Medieval Sourcebook (sourcebooks.fordham.edu). Find one additional sentence from Dum Diversas not in the excerpt above. Write it here and apply Question 3: