Talk:Discovery doctrine

Should doctrine of discovery be Capitalised?

Hello all

Another user wants the term doctrine of discovery to be consistently capitalised as Doctrine of Discovery. The article previously mostly used "doctrine of discovery" but did occasionally use "Doctrine of Discovery". Policy states. "Doctrines, ideologies, philosophies, theologies, theories, movements, methods, processes, systems or schools of thought and practice, and fields of academic study or professional practice are not capitalized, unless the name derives from a proper name." (MOS:DOCTCAPS). The user rebuts this by stating that the overwhelmingly majority of sources do capitalise the term as "Doctrine of Discovery". However, a google search shows that this is most often done in newspapers headlines and in the titles of books and articles which are conventionally capitalised in the US. I suggest that we consistently use lower case in accordance with policy unless there is clear evidence that the overwhelming majority of sources consistently capitalise "doctrine of discovery" other than in headlines or article/book titles.

Happy to discuss Aemilius Adolphin (talk) 11:21, 2 May 2025 (UTC)

And revert, apparently. Firstly, Google search can't, by any stretch, tell you what percentage of usage is book titles and articles. That said, many search results and news headlines show that the phrase is capitalized independently. Secondly, what I cited was not search results but an ngram, which tracks far more than titles. In short, "Doctrine of Discovery is a capitalized proper name, as virtually all sources and uses show. natemup (talk) 11:30, 2 May 2025 (UTC)

I reverted because policy clearly states that the names of doctrines are NOT capitalised and I believe that a clear policy should be followed unless there is a clear consensus that it is overridden by another policy. That said, policy is inconsistent on this matter because it also states "only words and phrases that are consistently capitalized in a substantial majority of independent, reliable sources are capitalized in Wikipedia." I think if we read policy as a whole Wikipedia generally prefers not to capitalise. I also think you need far more examples of capitalisation of doctrine of discovery (beyond headlines and titles) to show that this is done consistently by a substantial majority of reliable sources. However, I am happy to go with whatever consensus emerges and would definitely prefer internal consistency in the article. Aemilius Adolphin (talk) 11:48, 2 May 2025 (UTC)

How many thousands of in-text citations does the ngram need to show you? I specifically said I wasn't citing search results. You brought that up. And the article is already inconsistent, since virtually all the sources have it capitalized but in the body you've ensured it isn't. natemup (talk) 14:11, 2 May 2025 (UTC)

Marshall's citation of papal bulls

In the section North American jurisprudence > Johnson v. McIntosh > Decision, the article states "Marshall noted the 1455 papal bull Romanus Pontifex approved Portugal's claims to lands discovered along the coast of West Africa, and the 1493 Inter caetera had ratified Spain's right to conquer newly found lands." I can find no evidence that Marshall noted these.

He does, as the following sentence points out, mention "the grant of the Pope" but I don't see anything more specific. I think the article should stick to what's in the text, unless there is evidence that this is what he was referring to (which should then be cited). Ten Thousand Charms (talk) 22:54, 30 May 2026 (UTC)

Thanks for pointing that out. I have removed the sentence. Aemilius Adolphin (talk) 03:46, 31 May 2026 (UTC)