Reflections on Dr. Dwayne Tomah’s Address to the 2026 HLH Members Meeting
Shared by Andrew Stevenson, Secretary
On Sunday, October 18th, our 2026 Annual Members Meeting featured guest speaker, Dr. Dwayne Tomah. Dr. Tomah is a Passamaquoddy language keeper, museum director, and curator devoted to preserving and teaching his native language. His theme for the evening was an exploration of the “Doctrine of Discovery” also known as the “Doctrine of Christian Discovery.” That concept laid the foundation for Western European nations of the 15th century to “discover” and “claim” the islands of the Caribbean, the continents of North and South America, and portions of Africa. Before addressing us, Dr. Tomah shared the documentary, “The Doctrine of Discovery: Unmasking the Domination Code.” [Note: for more information about this documentary, go to: www.originalfreenations.com ]
At the beginning of his presentation, Dr. Tomah told us that his exploration would necessarily touch on two sensitive subjects: religion and politics. Religion – specifically Christianity as it evolved from the Roman Catholic tradition and into the Protestant varieties that arose from that source – because the Doctrine of Discovery was laid down by Pope Alexander VI in 1493. Politics – as practiced by all European and subsequent American governments – because all of them justified their conquests of the New World on that initial assertion.
Words matter deeply to Dr. Tomah. He challenged us to think critically about such terms as “domination,” “sovereignty,” “human,” “human rights,” and “Manifest Destiny.” He used one pair of words to illustrate the darker side of Doctrine: “occupation” and “ownership.” While European colonizers could not wish away the reality of settled, civil populations of indigenous peoples in the lands they “discovered,” they used the Doctrine to separate the idea of living in a place from the actual ownership of it. Indigenous populations had the “right to occupy” their territories, but they did not have the “right to ownership.” “Ownership” was reserved for the colonizers because they came from a superior civilization supported by a religious mandate and the military might to take possession of the lands they found…in the name of their rulers and their religious authorities.
This was a difficult presentation to take in without flinching mentally. As most of us are aware, the full history of how Western European nations invaded and conquered what we now call “the Americas” is not one of which we can be proud. There is no high ground for those of us born white and of European and English stock to claim. I was deeply shocked and saddened to learn that scholars researching and documenting the colonization of the American continents now estimate that up to 95% of the indigenous populations never survived contact with their oppressors!
As humbling as Dr. Tomah’s talk was for me, and as uncomfortable as watching the documentary was, I sensed that everyone in the room listened, absorbed, and probably will reflect for some time on his presentation. He concluded his address with an impassioned call for us to deeply consider acknowledging the darker side of the American story and a challenge to dedicate ourselves to what he called “the power of Living.” “This is not about partisan politics,” he said, “right wing or left wing…it is still the same bird!”
If you would like to know more. For anyone who would like to learn more about the Doctrine of Discovery, Dr. Tomah drew extensively from the work of Steven Newcomb. Newcomb is a Shawnee/Lanape scholar whose 2008 book, Pagans in the Promised Land: Decoding the Doctrine of Christian Discovery, dramatically argues that U.S. federal Indian law is firmly grounded in Old Testament notions of the Promised Land, a Chosen People, and divine approval of the subjugating “heathens” and “pagans” to the will of Christian invaders. He is also Director of the Indigenous Law Institute. In May 2016, Mr. Newcomb met Pope Francis at St. Peter’s Square and spent two hours meeting with Archbishop Tomasi at the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace regarding the papal bulls of the fifteenth century. On March 30, 2023, the Vatican formally repudiated the Doctrine of Christian Discovery, in part because of the sustained campaign to do so, a movement that culminated in the 2022 visit of Pope Francis to Canada.