Pufendorf on European Conquest and Non-European Peoples

Abstract Pufendorf is strikingly unique. In an age when few voices called out the inhumane treatment of European empires towards native populations, Pufendorf provides an instructive lesson for pluralizing our understanding of early modern political thought. Unlike many of the political thinkers with whom he is usually grouped, he stands out as a clear outlier in his vision for harnessing Europeans’ ambitions for overseas empires and voices an active defence of the rights of indigenous people. Keenly aware of the growing inequities between Europeans and non-Europeans created by conquest and subjugation, Pufendorf essentially offers a critique of the Eurocentric nature of the law of nations long before anyone could see its far-reaching and devastating hold on those people living outside of Europe.