"Land Hath Been the Idol": English Expropriation of Native Land

Puritan clergyman Increase Mather may have been stating the obvious in 1675 when he lamented that “Land! Land! hath been the Idol of many in New-England.” But what kind of an idol was that land, and how—if at all—did puritans and other seventeenth-century English settlers understand the moral dimensions of dispossessing Native peoples in order to obtain it? In this trenchant presentation moderated by Aquinnah Wampanoag educator Brad Lopes, historian of Indigenous-colonial relations Daniel Richter explores the theory and practice in the English seizure of Native land in 17th century New England.

The answer is often said to lie in a bundle of assumptions that much later became known as “the Doctrine of Discovery,” which involved a series of fifteenth-century papal bulls, the moral obligation of Christians to convert the world to their faith, and a confusing mix of Latin phrases such as terra nullius, res nullius, vacuum domicilium, imperium, and dominium. These were powerful ideas, but their meanings were deeply contested at least until 1823, when the U.S. Supreme Court tried to codify them retrospectively in the case of Johnson v. M’Intosh.

To the extent a coherent Doctrine of Discovery existed in the seventeenth century, anyone who tried to deploy it in the real world ran up against two practical problems. The first, of course, was how a small number of European Christians was to persuade thousands of Indigenous people to abandon their religious traditions and submit to colonial government, much less hand over their lands to settlers. The second was how to determine which particular European Christian power was entitled to claim the right of discovery and then which particular subjects of that European power got to exercise that right on the ground by trying to solve the first practical problem. Intertwined with all of this was how, if at all, to take seriously the obligation to spread Christianity that supposedly provided the moral foundations for the entire enterprise.

Wôpanâak in the seventeenth century was where all of these contradictions and problems came into particular focus—especially in the writings of clergy such as Mather and elite lay puritans such as John Winthrop and Roger Williams who variously tried and failed to make sense of it all.

Daniel K. Richter is Roy F. and Jeannette P. Nichols Professor of American History Emeritus and Director Emeritus of the McNeil Center for Early American Studies at the University of Pennsylvania. He is the author of Native Americans and Pennsylvania (revised and expanded edition, 2026); Trade, Land, Power: The Struggle for Eastern North America (2013); Before the Revolution: America’s Ancient Pasts (2011); Facing East from Indian Country: A Native History of Early America (2001); and The Ordeal of the Longhouse: The Peoples of the Iroquois League in the Era of European Colonization (1992).

Brad Lopes is a citizen of the Wampanoag Tribe of Gay Head Aquinnah, who call Nôepe (Martha's Vineyard) home and have lived there for over 12,000 years. Brad currently serves as the education manager for the Wampanoag Tribe of Gay Head Aquinnah and as the education and outreach coordinator for the Aquinnah Cultural Center, a Wampanoag history museum founded in the Edwin DeVries Vanderhoop homestead. Brad Lopes experiences growing up and attending public schools set him on a path of seeking to decolonize educational pedagogies and content. At the core of his work is the notion of educational sovereignty for Tribal Nations and a responsibility to ensure culturally aligned educational opportunities for Wampanoag youth and adults.Brad Lopes also serves on the boards of the Whale and Dolphin Conservation, Indigenous Resource Collaborative, and Martha's Vineyard public charter school.

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Image: The seal of 17th century Massachusetts Bay Company as rendered by a 19th century artist.It formed the basis of the image now displayed on the Massachusetts state flag and seal, and which is the focus of a statewide campaign for change.