‘We have to come to grips with history’: Robert P Jones on The Hidden Roots of White Supremacy

Jones examines that mythological origin story and its promised land. He spotlights the "Doctrine of Discovery", a little-known or understood series of 15th-century papal edicts asserting that European civilisation and western Christianity are superior to all other cultures, races and religions. For Jones, it is "a kind of Rosetta Stone for understanding the deep structure of the European political and religious worldviews we have inherited in this country". 

The initial edict, issued by Nicholas V in 1452, granted the Portuguese king Alfonso V the right to "invade, search out, capture, vanquish, and subdue all Saracens [Muslims] and pagans whatsoever, and other enemies of Christ wheresoever placed, and the kingdoms, dukedoms, principalities, dominions, possessions, and all movable and immovable goods whatsoever held and possessed by them and to reduce their persons to perpetual slavery". 

Jones says: "Then there's a series of these documents that get issued between 1452 and 1493, each of which build on this idea but essentially all say the same thing: that if the land is not occupied by Christian people – and that Christian identity is the thing that determines whether you have your own human rights or not – then the Christian kings and queens have the right to conquer those lands and take possession of everything that they can in the name of the state and the church."

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2023/sep/09/robert-p-jones-book-roots-white-supremacy-trump-biden-race