The Biblical Basis for the Oppression of Native Americans Part 2

Introduction

From the first Puritan landfalls to the closing of the frontier, ministers, missionaries, judges, and elected officials laced their rhetoric with Scripture to defend every major engine of Native oppression: reservation confinement, treaty-breaking, disenfranchisement, holy war, scalp bounties, and forced assimilation. This essay traces how six distinct policies were wrapped in Bible verses and preached as covenant duty.

1. Land Seizure and the Reservation System

Texts invoked: Genesis 1 :28; Deuteronomy 7 :1-2; Joshua 1 :1-6.

Seventeenth-century sermons re-cast Anglo-Protestants as a “New Israel” commissioned to subdue a vacant terra nullius. Cotton Mather wrote that epidemics among coastal peoples “cleared our title,” an echo of Deut 7’s command to “destroy” the Canaanites before settling the land. In the nineteenth century the same triad of texts undergirded Manifest Destiny oratory; revival preachers crossing the plains read Joshua 1 :3—“Every place that the sole of your foot shall tread, I have given you”—over camp-meeting altars to bless the removal of tribes to Indian Territory.

When removal gave way to fixed reservations after 1850, clerics still leaned on conquest typology. The papal bulls Dum Diversas (1452) and Inter Caetera (1493) had already fused Matt 28 :19 and Ps 2 :8 into the Doctrine of Discovery, teaching that Christian princes might “possess” pagan lands for the advance of the Gospel. U.S. courts simply transferred that logic to a republic. Gilder Lehrman Institute

2. Breaking Treaties

Texts invoked: Exodus 34 :12-16; Deuteronomy 20 :16-18.

Exodus warns Israel not to “make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land…lest it become a snare.” Anti-treaty preachers quoted the line to argue that pacts with “heathens” could never be permanent. In 1871 Congress added a one-sentence rider ending treaty-making with tribes; floor speeches repeated the Exodus language to justify unilateral abrogation. Faithlife Sermons

3. Denying Citizenship Until 1924

Texts invoked: Galatians 4 :1-2; the Discovery Doctrine’s Christian/heathen binary.

Chief Justice John Marshall’s opinion in Johnson v. McIntosh (1823) said “heathens” held only a right of occupancy; full dominion belonged to “Christian people.” N.Y.U. Review of Law & Social Change Lawmakers then portrayed Indigenous nations as “minors of civilization.” Citing Gal 4 :1-2 (“the heir is under tutors and governors until the time set by his father”), they built a ward-guardian system that postponed citizenship until Native peoples were “matured” by allotment, mission schools, and farming manuals—projects formalized in the Dawes Act of 1887. National Archives

4. Declaring Holy War

Texts invoked: Deuteronomy 7; Exodus 17 :13-16; 1 Samuel 15.

During King Philip’s War (1675-76) Puritan chroniclers labelled Wampanoag combatants “Amalekites,” a people God ordered Israel to “utterly destroy.” The typology sanctified indiscriminate war and pre-emptive strikes on villages. Later frontier chaplains recycled the New-Israel/Canaan motif; congressional debates over the 1864 Sand Creek campaign invoked Joshua’s wars to defend violent “pacification.”

5. Scalping and Bounty Laws

Texts invoked: Psalm 68 :21; 1 Samuel 18 :27; 2 Samuel 4 :12.

Old-Testament trophies—heads on gates, Philistine foreskins—were cited as precedents for bodily tokens. A 1676 tract urged soldiers to “go away with the hairy Scalp of their enemyes,” mirroring Ps 68 :21’s promise that God would smite “the hairy scalp of the wicked.” Internet ArchiveVideo Bible In 1755 Lt. Gov. Spencer Phips issued a Massachusetts broadside paying cash for Penobscot scalps; public letters defended the policy with the same verses. More than 120 scalp-bounty laws spread westward before 1870. Upstander Project

6. Forced Assimilation—Mission Schools and “Civilizing” Laws

Texts invoked: Luke 14 :23; Galatians 4 :1-2.

Reservation superintendents quoted Jesus’ parable—“Compel them to come in, that my house may be filled”—to rationalize mandatory attendance at boarding schools where children were shorn of language, dress, and religion. Annual reports to the Board of Indian Commissioners paired Luke 14 with Gal 4 to justify paternal compulsion “until the tribes are fitted for citizenship.” CORE

Hermeneutical Threads

1. Conquest Typology. America = Israel; Native nations = Canaan/Amalek.

2. Christian–Heathen Hierarchy. The Discovery Doctrine read Matt 28 :19 as granting plenary power to “Christian people.”

3. Guardianship Paternalism. Gal 4 mis-read to lock tribes into perpetual minority.

4. Selective Literalism. Old-Testament war texts cited word-for-word while ignoring contextual limits or the Sermon on the Mount.

A Comprehensive Biblical Counter-Argument

Below is a point-by-point reply that draws on the full canon—Law, Prophets, Gospels, and Epistles—to show why the Bible, read in context and through Christ, condemns the very practices earlier interpreters tried to baptize.

1. Land Seizure & Reservations

Misused texts → Gen 1 :28; Deut 7 ; Josh 1

2. Breaking Treaties

Misused texts → Ex 34 :12-16; Deut 20 :16-18

Misused text → Gal 4 :1-2

4. Holy War & “Amalekites”

Misused texts → Deut 7; Ex 17; 1 Sam 15

1. Hermeneutical context:
   The NT re-frames warfare. Christians engage in spiritual battle, not flesh-and-blood campaigns (2 Cor 10 :3-5; Eph 6 :12-17).

2. Explicit prohibition: Jesus rebukes disciples who want to call down fire on “Samaritans” (Luke 9 :55) and commands Peter to sheath his sword (Matt 26 :52).

3. Prophetic trajectory: Eschatological peace replaces Canaanite extermination (Isa 2 :2-4; Mic 4 :1-4). The Amalekite logic dies at Calvary where the enemy is reconciled, not wiped out (Eph 2 :14-17).

5. Scalping & Trophy Killing

Misused texts → Ps 68 :21; 1 Sam 18 :27; 2 Sam 4 :12

6. Forced Assimilation & “Compel Them to Come In”

Misused texts → Luke 14 :23; Gal 4 :1-2

1. Christocentric reading – All Scripture culminates in Jesus, whose kingdom spreads by self-giving love (John 18 :36; Phil 2 :5-11).

2. Canonical balance – Descriptive violence is weighed against prophetic justice and Gospel ethics.

3. Image-of-God equality – Every policy must pass Gen 1 :26-27 and Jas 3 :9: if it degrades God’s image-bearers, it cannot be God’s will.

4. Covenant fidelity – Scripture prizes oath-keeping; breaking treaties profanes God’s name (Lev 19 :12).

5. Mission by witness, not conquest – The Great Commission commands teaching and baptizing, never land seizure (Matt 28 :18-20).

Conclusion

For four centuries a handful of verses—ripped from context and fused with national exceptionalism—became theological scaffolding for land greed and racial fear. Ministers and magistrates who marched under the banner of Joshua ended up crucifying the very image of God in their Indigenous neighbours. Yet the fault lay not with Scripture itself, but with the selective hermeneutics that turned conquest tales into sacred duty. Read canonically and through the lens of Christ, the Bible condemns every oppressive practice it was once used to bless:

• Land theft violates God-given stewardship and the command to love one’s neighbour.

• Treaty-breaking profanes the divine demand for covenant faithfulness.

• Denial of citizenship contradicts the new humanity forged in Christ, where ethnic walls fall.

• “Holy war” rhetoric collapses under the cross’s summons to enemy-love.

• Scalping desecrates the divine image stamped on every person.

• Forced assimilation rejects the multi-lingual, multi-cultural kingdom God is gathering.

The Bible’s true trajectory moves from conquest to compassion, from exclusion to embrace, from sword to ploughshare. Any theology that justifies crushing Indigenous peoples is not fidelity to Scripture but a betrayal of its Author.