Junipero Serra and the Doctrine of Discovery

Steven Newcomb
Indian Country Today

Most of the discussion has remained narrowly focused on Serra personally. Discussion of the overall system of Spanish Catholic imperialism that Serra represented and worked to advance has been avoided, particularly by the Catholic Church.

The Catholic Church prefers that people think of Serra as an agent of religious “evangelism,” and not as an agent of dehumanizing religious imperialism. No doubt the Catholic Church does not want Serra to be thought of as an agent of what Pope Alexander VI called “the Christian empire” and “dominations.”

Archbishop Gomez of Los Angeles recently published an article in which he claimed that “Padre Serra’s canonization will be a beautiful day” for the United States.” He continued: “It will be a day to remember that our state [California] and our country [the United States]—and all the nations of the Americas—are born from the Christian mission and built on Christian foundations.” Archbishop Gomez is not being forthright about a key fact: What he is referencing is a “foundation” of Catholic and Christian imperialism and what Pope Alexander VI called in the Latin language “imperia et dominationes.”

The “foundation” that Archbishop Gomez is referring to is identified in a book published in 1909 by the U.S. Government Printing Office. The book was compiled and edited by Francis Newton Thorpe under the Act of Congress of June 30, 1906. It is entitled: The Federal and State Constitutions Colonial Charters, and Other Organic Laws of the States, Territories, and Colonies Now or Heretofore Forming the United States of America.

The book’s Table of Contents provides important information about the documentary record of the political system and organic laws of the United States in those places where the Crown of Castile first laid claim to the lands and territories of original Indian nations in North America. Under “Florida” in the Table of Contents we find: “Prerogatives granted to Christopher Columbus—1492.” And, “Bull of Pope Alexander VI—1493.” Under “Texas,” we find: “Spanish claim of dominion in America—1492-93 (Papal Bull).”

According to a book published by the United States government, and compiled and edited by a foremost authority on the subject, the foundation of the imperial political system and organic laws in those areas where Spain first laid claim—such as Florida, Texas, and California (as well as Arizona, New Mexico, and other places)—trace back to the Prerogatives granted to Columbus and to the Alexandrine papal documents of the Christian empire of 1493.

The dominating legacy traced to the Prerogatives issued to Columbus, and to the papal bull documents of Pope Alexander VI, is the context of Pope Francis declaring Junipero Serra to be a Catholic saint. By declaring Junipero Serra to be a Catholic saint, Pope Francis is drawing attention away from an accurate reading of that dominating imperial past of the Catholic Church, and thereby work toward what Pope John Paul II called “the purification of memory.” He is thereby keeping the Church “purified” by drawing attention away from the deadly imperial context of the Spanish Catholic mission system. Pope Francis’ act of “sainthood” draws attention away from the fact that Serra was carrying out Pope Alexander VI’s desire that “barbarous nations” be “subjugated” (dominated).

Today’s imperial control over the original nations of California, and many other areas, is traced back to the Vatican papal documents of the fifteenth century and to the Spanish Catholic empire which Serra served. The true nature of the Spanish Catholic empire has been cleverly disguised behind a cloak of euphemisms such as “the Catholic mission system.”

In his book A Violent Evangelism (1992), Dr. Luis Rivera-Pagán points out that “the Alexandrian bulls [edicts] maintained their authorized character” in “the juridical [legal] area.” He says that this is found in “the Compilation of the Leyes de Indias (1680),” which recognizes those papal documents “as the first foundation of the possession in perpetuity of the Americas by the crown of Castilla” (p. 32).

As the Emperor of Spain declared in 1680: “Bydonation from the Apostolic Holy See. . . we are Lord of the Western Indies, isles and mainlands of the Ocean Sea, discovered and to be discovered and incorporated in our royal Crown of Castilla. . . [so that] they may always remain united for their greater perpetuity and firmness, we forbid their being taken away..(Recopilación, 1841).”

Rivera-Pagán then says: “This law is based on consecutive royal declarations by Carlos V and Filipe II, who during the sixteenth century propounded the doctrine of Castilian dominion in perpetuity over the Ibero-American people. All those declarations allude to the Alexandrine bulls as the crucial point of reference.” The etymology of “dominion” traces to domination, for, as William Brandon put it: in his New Worlds for Old Reports from the New World and Their Effect on the Development of Social Thought in Europe, 1500–1800 (1986), “Political power grown from property—dominium—was, in effect, domination.”

By the terms of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, of 1848, between the United States and Mexico, the United States was deemed to have become the political successor of the empire of Mexico over the geographical areas which Mexico purported to cede to the United States. As a result, the original Native nations of California (and in all other areas claimed by Spain) are deemed to exist today under the dominating sovereignty and dominium of what the U.S. Supreme Court has called “the American empire” (Loughborough v. Blake, 1820, and Downes v. Bidwell, 1901).

A book published in 1885 reveals that the U.S. claim of territorial domination over the vast region that Mexico ceded to the United States by the 1848 Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo is traced back to the time of Columbus and the papal bulls of 1493. The book by Frederick Hall is, The Laws of Mexico: A Compilation and Treatise Relating To Real Property, Mines, Water Rights, Personal Rights, Contracts, and Inheritances. Part one of the book is titled, “Crown Lands of Spain, Public Lands of Mexico, and Mines,” where we find the following:

§ 1. Grant by the Pope.—For the purposes of overthrowing heathenism, and advancing the Roman Catholic Religion, Alexander the sixth issued a bull [document] in 1493, granting to the crown of Castile the whole of the vast domain then discovered, or to be discovered, between the north and the south poles, or so much thereof as was not considered in the possession of any Christian power. “Ut fides Catholica et Christiana religio nostres præsertim temporibus exaltetur, etc., ac barbaræ deprimentur, et ad fidem ipsam reducantur,” was the language of the bull: 1 Haz. Coll. 3.”

Hall cleverly left out of his Latin quote the word “nations” that is found in the original Latin text (the original reads: “ac bararæ nations deprimantur”). He did so undoubtedly to avoid attributing even a hint of nationhood to the Indians of the geographical region called “California.”

The dominion (right of domination) claimed by the Spanish Empire, based on the grant of the papal bulls, passed to the Mexican Empire when it won its independence from Spain, and passed from Mexico to the American Empire by the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. The imperial right of domination is deemed to pass from one empire to the next by the rules of political succession, and this is the context of Pope Francis’s decision to declare Junipero Serra to be a saint of the Roman Catholic religious empire.

Most argument in favor or against Serra Sainthood has been based on opinion or current interpretation of  history.  Very little discussion has delved into the root cause of why the Mission System was the beginning of the end of indigenous people in California  and why the person that executed the Church and Crowns plan for domination is in no way a Saint.

Thank you for your support. We have just over 3,200 signatures now, but still need more.  We would like to have at least 5,000 signatures when we deliver the petition to the Pope and Church officials. With your help, we will reach our goal.

http://petitions.moveon.org/sign/urge-pope-francis-to?mailing_id=27498&source=s.icn.em.cr&r_by=6196442

Steven Newcomb (Shawnee, Lenape) is co-founder and co-director of the Indigenous Law Institute and author of Pagans in the Promised Land: Decoding the Doctrine of Christian Discovery (Fulcrum, 2008). He has been studying federal Indian law and international law since the early 1980s.

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Link to another Indian Country Today article: Serra the Saint: Why not? http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2015/01/26/serra-saint-why-not-158863

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Off target

A new show at the Colorado Springs, Colorado Sangre de Cristo Arts Center unveils the importance of fact-checking ... or not

by Edie Adelstein

Maria Lopez's upcoming exhibit at the Sangre de Cristo Arts & Conference Center features colorful, abstract works depicting Christian scenes. But the most eye-catching aspect of the Pueblo artist's self-titled show came within a press release.

"Her works," the Sangre wrote of Lopez, "are currently in the art collections of celebrities such as: Barack Obama, Dane Cook, Cheech Marin, George Lopez, Carlos Mencia, Chris Rock, David Letterman, Martha Stewart, Conan O'Brein [sic], Wanda Sykes, Tracy Morgan, John Leguizamo and others."

Sure enough, Lopez's Web site, lopezme.com, listed more than 20 celebrities who have one of her works in their "estate collections," and recently, the Pueblo Chieftain published an article that mentioned some of those names.

Asked her secret, Lopez happily shares: She goes to concerts, stand-up shows and other public appearances — and gives the works to famous people's handlers and representatives. She admits she doesn't know whether any of her works actually make it into celebrities' homes at all.

The Indy contacted several celebrity representatives about Lopez's paintings. While most inquiries were not returned, Melissa Richardson Banks, a representative of Cheech Marin, says she has no record of Lopez's work, despite Marin being an avid collector of Chicano art.

"I manage the collection, and I don't know who she is," says Banks, who adds that she'll ask Lopez to remove Marin's mention from her site.

A representative from Martha Stewart's publicity firm didn't know where to begin to look, but shares Banks' view that Lopez's paintings were probably classified as simple fan gifts, which generally reside well outside of estate collections.

When asked about the discrepancies, Lopez says she didn't know that her self-promotion — which she sees as both business plan and fan hobby — might have been seen as misleading.

Slim standard

At best, Lopez may be faulted for aggressive idealism or reckless naïveté. Either way, her claims didn't set off alarms at the Sangre.

Its curator of visual arts, Karin Larkin, approved Lopez's works hanging in the museum. She says she did not fact-check Lopez's credentials, and in fact is unapologetic about it. (Disclosure: Larkin is an ex-professor of mine.)

"Basically, we print the information that she gives us," says Larkin, adding, "To be quite honest, whose collections she's in doesn't really factor into my decision as to whether or not I display her. And the information that goes out into the press releases, I don't necessarily put together."

Plus, Larkin adds, "She's a foyer show. It's not like one of the big galleries that we're putting together."

Sangre's marketing specialist Nicki Hart, who assembled the press release, says taking information straight from the artist is good enough: "I take it in good faith that that information coming from the source is correct."

If that sounds strange, what's stranger is that few people in the arts sector seem bothered by it.

Dewey Blanton, an American Association of Museums media representative, says that in public relations, doing background research is a given, even if there's no standard for fact-checking exhibit information. And yet minutes later, Blanton calls back to confess that if he himself were an overextended, underpaid employee in a "small museum," he may be apt to overlook such things.

Kimberley Sherwood, a board member for the Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center and a local nonprofit consultant, puts it this way: "I think there's a lot of room for innocent mistakes ... when we have fairly slim resources and people wearing many hats doing lots of different kinds of tasks ... there's a lot of room for understanding.

"I don't know that there's anything really there," says Sherwood of the situation, "other than perhaps a slim staff working hard to get their programming schedule out there so that they can encourage people to come and look at cool art."

In nearly a half-dozen calls, no one was willing to comment on the record about any dangers inherent to the Sangre's sloppiness.

Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center curator Tariana Navas-Nieves is careful to say that all institutions are different, but that FAC releases and gallery text are fact-checked.

"I would say that every museum has their own processes on selecting artists to exhibit, or art into their collection," she says. "And obviously all museums generally fact-check the information, the biographical and support information for each artist."

Official approval
The irony here? Lopez probably doesn't need to embellish her biography. Recently, Lopez submitted a group of works to Navas-Nieves for consideration to become part of the FAC's permanent collection as a gift. And Lopez's art was accepted, receiving Navas-Nieves' formal recommendation as well as museum committee approval.

"My presentation of the works has to do with the works," says Navas-Nieves. "In her case, I found interesting how she takes religious subject matter and gives it kind of a modern take. ... So my selection of those works was based on that."

Meanwhile, at the Sangre, Hart says the staff is working on a plan for future situations like this one, but is not yet giving specifics. As of press time, Sangre had not released any clarification or statement. However, Lopez has changed her Web site, writing now that celebrities' paintings "were gifted."

— edie@csindy.com

Chicana Artist Explores Heritage through Retablo Paintings

[Click image to enlarge. Photo from http://www.cristinaacosta.com]

Article courtesy of artdaily.org

Chicana artist Cristina Acosta has turned to sacred art as a means of exploring her religious and cultural heritage, incorporating aspects of her life, beliefs and family history into Madonna retablos.

"The tradition of the retablo (devotional image) reflects both the past and the present," said the artist, whose works are now on display as part of an exhibit of contemporary retablos at this southwestern U.S. city's El Museo Cultural.

The word "retablo" in Spanish dates back to the Renaissance and Baroque era and was used to refer to large screens that were placed behind altars in churches and were decorated with paintings, carvings, and sculptures.

These large altar screens then became prevalent in colonial Latin America as well, and by the 19th century oil-on-tin retablo paintings of Christ, the Virgin, and saints were commonly produced by amateur artists for devotional use in the home.

However, in parts of the southwestern United States, such as New Mexico and Colorado, retablos passed beyond the realm of sacred art into that of folklore.

Acosta said there are two types of retablos, one belonging to the tradition of Catholic saints and the other to that of "ex-votos," or offerings of gratitude.

She says the first group is similar to the concept of icon painting in Byzantine art, in which the figures of saints or the Holy Family are painted in accordance with strict liturgical rules that define how the main figure should be portrayed.

"The counterpoint to that tradition is the ex-voto retablo, for which there are no rules but rather (the artist) creates a personal vision to give thanks for a blessing (received) or when a petition was heard," she said.

It is within this folk tradition that her art is rooted.

Acosta said her retablos have served as a medium for meditating on her family heritage, her Latino identity and her role as a woman and an artist.

"My retablos are strictly related to my life, my Latina-Chicana cultural heritage in the southwestern U.S. and my personal opinions and life experiences," she said.

Acosta, who now lives in Oregon, grew up in a Catholic family - the daughter of an Anglo-American mother and a Mexican-American father - in southern California and attributes that upbringing to the prevalence of religious images in her art, but she says her art is not dogmatic and merely depicts her cultural heritage.

"This (ex-voto) form of retablo gives me the opportunity to connect with the religion of my childhood without having to struggle with dogmatic questions that do not always correspond with who I am now," she said.

Her Madonna retablos focus not so much on the Catholic figure of the mother but rather on the creative energy the Virgin evokes.

"When I work, I don't think about challenging religious thought or stereotypes, but I think the result of certain images does tend to run contrary to those traditions," Acosta said.

The artist pointed to her "La Conquistadora" (Our Lady of the Conquest) painting, which blends indigenous, ancient female images and concepts with the Catholic image of Mary.

Acosta also incorporates material in her work that alludes to her family history.

"My ancestors were well-known goldsmiths and silversmiths," said Acosta, whose paternal great-grandparents were descendants of the original Spanish settlers who founded cities and villages throughout New Mexico.

"That's why in my work I mix in gold, silver and copper metals into my oil paintings, (to) evoke the presence of those ancestors."

Acosta said the idea for the series of Madonna retablos displayed in the Santa Fe exhibit first came to her 20 years ago as dream images.

"The dreams began during my pregnancy," she said. "During that period I dreamed that I was a woman who was traveling north, crossing dusty plains and streams behind a ox-cart."

Acosta calls them her "Maria dreams," as that is how she remembers being called when those mental images and emotions came to her while asleep.

"The search for the meaning of those dreams eventually led me back to New Mexico, the land of my ancestors," Acosta said.

For more on the artist go to: http://www.cristinaacosta.com/

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