The Origins of American Exceptionalism
American historical roots must start with the Papal Bulls or 1455 and 1492 (check).
Simply stated these Bulls enunciated the rights of Discovery and Domination. These documents gave the “superior Christians” by virtue of so-called discovery the right to own any lands they claimed, and to the possessions of any indigenous peoples living there as well as the right to enslave, to dominate and decimate all non Christians and Saracens (Muslims).
These religious doctrines provided the justification for the Spanish conquistadores to commit genocide in the central and South America leading to 500 years of tyranny.
In the United States, these Bulls provided the justification for settler colonialism with genocide against an “inferior and ignorant race” and backward culture.
Steven T Newcomb in Pagans in the Promised Land and Sheldon Peters Wolfchild in the documentary The Doctrine of Discovery brilliantly discuss these issues.
Interestingly enough, a landmark supreme court case, Johnson and leasees v. M’Kintosh is based on the Papal Bulls and which are quoted in the rulings. This is one of the first cases law students study. The ruling basically states the US government inherited the lands acquired by the earlier Christian discoverers, and therefore owned all Indian lands.
The institution of slavery was based on these precepts. And we see the United States holding itself the City on the Hill, the country anointed by god with the right to do as it pleased. Our foreign policy still is based on this mythology..
Howard P. Charman, MD 5-2-2022