Unmasking the Doctrine of Discovery with Dr. Leo Oliva

Name: Unmasking the Doctrine of Discovery with Dr. Leo Oliva
Start: 2025-10-12T14:00:00-05:00
End: 2025-10-12T16:00:00-05:00
Location: 3600 Broadway Ave, Great Bend, KS 67530-3636, United States

Schedule

Sun Oct 12 2025 at 02:00 pm to 04:00 pm

UTC-05:00

Location

3600 Broadway Ave, Great Bend, KS 67530-3636, United States | Great Bend, KS

Issued by Papal Bull in the 1400s, the Doctrine of Discovery has directed or influenced nations for centuries – even today.
The Doctrine has been used as justification to take the lands of and to commit atrocities against indigenous peoples, all in the name of Christianity.
In honor of Indigenous Peoples’ Day, Heartland Center for Spirituality and Heartland Farm are honored to host a special screening of The Doctrine of Discovery: Unmasking the Domination Code, written by Stephen Newcomb and directed and coproduced by Sheldon Peters Wolfchild, with commentary and context by Dr. Leo Oliva, professor emeritus from Fort Hays State University.
Date: Sunday, October 12, 2025
Time: 2:00 – 4:00 PM
Location: Great Bend Motherhouse
3600 Broadway, Great Bend, KS 67530
Refreshments will be served and a freewill offering will be taken.
RSVP appreciated by emailing [email protected] or [email protected] or by calling the Great Bend Motherhouse at (620) 792-1232.
Dr. Oliva grew up on a farm in north-central Kansas where he lives today. He earned a Ph.D. in American Studies at the University of Denver and is a former professor of history at Fort Hays State University. He has been researching and writing about the Santa Fe Trail, frontier military history, conquest of Indigenous nations and their lands, and Kansas history since 1959. His first book, Soldiers on the Santa Fe Trail, was published in 1967. He is author of six of the eight books in the Kansas Forts Network series (Kansas State Historical Society), and Fort Union and the Frontier Army in the Southwest (National Park Service). He edited the Santa Fe Trail Association quarterly, Wagon Tracks, for 25 years. He manages the Cheyenne/Lakota village site, owned by the Fort Larned Old Guard, where Gen. W. S. Hancock burned a peaceful village of 1,500 people in 1867, creating a war where none existed. The site is on the National Register of Historic Places and is being nominated for designation as a National Historic Landmark. He has presented more than 400 programs to numerous organizations. He has been a member of Humanities Kansas speakers’ bureau since 2010. He promotes the study of the Doctrine of Discovery, created by Papal Bulls in the 15th century, which is the foundation of colonialism, justification for taking Indigenous peoples’ lands and destroying their native culture, enslavement of Africans and others, and still the law in the United States regarding Indigenous lands.