Doctrine of Discovery Pope Alexander VI 1493 — Pope Alexander VI’s Demarcation Bull, May 4, 1493.

In 1493, just a year after Columbus' first voyage to the Americas, Pope Alexander VI issued the papal bull Inter Caetera, formalizing what would become known as the Doctrine of Discovery. This decree gave Christian monarchs—especially those of Western Europe—the divine right to claim and conquer non-Christian lands, and to subjugate the peoples living there. The Doctrine declared that Indigenous nations lacked sovereignty because they were not Christian, effectively erasing their legal and spiritual rights in the eyes of European powers. This theological justification for colonization would shape centuries of imperial expansion and racial violence, embedding within Catholicism a moral framework for land theft, slavery, and forced conversion. French colonization in the Gulf South was no exception. It was under the shadow of this Doctrine that La Salle would erect a cross at the mouth of the Mississippi River and claim the entirety of the Mississippi River basin for France.

In the early 18th century, French colonization of the Gulf South was not only a conquest of land but an aggressive campaign to dominate minds and erase cultures. One of the first Jesuit missionaries to participate in this colonial project was Father Paul Du Ru, who arrived in 1700 as part of a broader imperial strategy. His task was to impose Catholic doctrine upon Indigenous nations whose cultures were deemed inferior by European standards—an ideological pillar of colonization grounded in the Doctrine of Discovery and the belief in the divine right of Europeans to reshape the world in their own image.

Du Ru’s missionary work in French-occupied Louisiana exemplified the cultural violence embedded in colonization. Rather than offering salvation the church’s mission was to spread European culture without respecting the religious practices, traditions, and languages of the Indigenous nations it encountered—including the Bayagoula, Natchez, and Houma—Du Ru sought to overwrite them with European standards. His efforts were part of a larger mission to "civilize" so-called savages, a process rooted in European cultural supremacy and justified by the idea that Indigenous people would benefit from assimilation into French Christian society.

Born in Normandy in 1666, Du Ru entered the Jesuit order with the conviction that his faith gave him the moral authority to transform entire cultures. He arrived in Louisiana as a chaplain to Pierre Le Moyne d'Iberville, a French naval officer tasked with fortifying France’s colonial claim along the Mississippi River. The Jesuits, widely regarded for their skill in language acquisition and proselytizing, were favored by Iberville despite ecclesiastical disagreements with the Bishop of Quebec, who had officially opposed their presence in the region.

Father Du Ru Louisiana — Jesuit Chaplin Paul Du Ru’s journal, 1700

Du Ru’s writings—often praised as a rich account of early Louisiana—are better understood as tools of spiritual conquest. They detail his attempts to study Native languages not for the sake of mutual understanding, but to more effectively dismantle Indigenous worldviews and replace them with Catholic dogma. His journal reveals a calculated effort to identify aspects of Indigenous rituals and beliefs that could be co-opted, manipulated, or eradicated in service of conversion. This so-called “cultural exchange” was in reality a one-sided imposition, in which Du Ru judged Indigenous customs through the lens of European religious orthodoxy.

Perhaps most disturbingly, Du Ru’s legacy cannot be separated from the broader system of colonial slavery. The French colonial regime not only exploited Indigenous labor but trafficked thousands of Africans into bondage in the Gulf South. These enslaved people were forced to convert to Catholicism, stripped of their original spiritual beliefs, languages, and names. Baptism, catechism, and participation in the Church were not offered—they were demanded. Conversion was not salvation; it was a tool of control and cultural genocide, designed to reinforce the authority of slaveowners and eradicate African identity. Yet despite these violent efforts, West African cultures endured. In southern Louisiana, enslaved people safeguarded their heritage through resistance, adaptation, and expression. Their cultural legacy survived in the rhythms of music, the structure of Creole languages, and in spiritual systems like Voodoo, which preserved ancestral wisdom under the guise of Catholic saints. What was meant to be erased became the foundation of a distinct and enduring Afro-Louisianan culture—a testament to the strength and persistence of a people who refused to be spiritually conquered.

Du Ru’s presence in Louisiana marked the beginning of this systematic religious coercion. He baptized Indigenous children and adults, often with little indication of their understanding. By March 1700, the Bayagoulas—under direction from Du Ru and French authorities—had begun building a chapel that could seat more than four hundred people. This building, often celebrated as the first Catholic church in Louisiana, should also be remembered as a symbol of subjugation, erected in the shadow of European cultural supremacy.

Du Ru eventually abandoned his mission, frustrated by the resilience of the people he sought to convert. The Jesuits were temporarily expelled, but their work was soon picked up by other religious orders—Capuchins, Ursulines, and Jesuits again—who reinforced the machinery of colonial dominance in places like New Orleans. The forced Catholicization of Indigenous and African peoples continued, a practice that blurred the lines between salvation and servitude.

The narrative of Du Ru is often framed as one of courage and faith. But to read his legacy honestly is to confront the dark undercurrent of colonization: the belief that European domination—of land, culture, and soul—was divinely ordained. The missions of men like Du Ru were not just about religion; they were about erasure, conquest, and control. And in their wake, they left a landscape forever scarred by the trauma of forced conversion and cultural loss.

Nanih Bvulbancha (built to honor Bulbancha) on the Lafitte Greenway.

As someone who grew up in a Creole Catholic culture (that I embrace and love) and whose ancestors hail from both France and the Senegambian region of West Africa, I feel it is incumbent upon me to remember that Bulbancha—the Indigenous name for this place we now call New Orleans—was a vibrant, sovereign civilization long before Adrien de Pauger laid out its colonial street grid in 1721. It is even more important to remember that Jesus was not European, and that much of what passes as Christianity today is a distortion—a European religious corruption that has been warped into Christian nationalism. Nothing could be further from the radical love, humility, and justice at the heart of Jesus’ actual message.

In fact, as nations long subjugated by European powers began to cast off the yoke of colonialism and its ideological counterpart, imperialism, the oppressed developed a theological consciousness of their own. Rooted in lived experience and historical suffering, they began to see in the message of Jesus not merely a promise of spiritual salvation, but a radical call for economic justice, human dignity, and collective liberation. This movement of thought became known as Liberation Theology. To dismiss its insights is to tacitly endorse the same colonial theology that missionaries advanced as spiritual cover for conquest. It is to ignore the profound moral reckoning that the Gospel demands in the face of oppression and inequality.

At the end of his autobiography, Frederick Douglass drew a clear line between the Middle Eastern Jesus of the Gospels and the Jesus invoked by European empires to justify slavery and conquest. Douglass wrote:

“Between the Christianity of this land, and the Christianity of Christ, I recognize the widest possible difference... I love the pure, peaceable, and impartial Christianity of Christ: I therefore hate the corrupt, slaveholding, women-whipping, cradle-plundering, partial and hypocritical Christianity of this land.”

At the root of Jesus’ teachings is the call not to dominate others, but to serve them. That truth still speaks powerfully in a world where colonization, religious nationalism, and cultural supremacy continue to cause harm. The work of remembering—of lifting up the voices and lives of those who came before colonization—remains a spiritual and moral obligation for all of us. Bulbancha is still a place!

—Eric Gabourel

The Doctrine of Discovery: Father Du Ru and the French Colonial System of Religious Domination in Louisiana