ABSTRACT
This chapter provides a short survey of the recognition of non-European political units as subjects of European international law that shows the extent to which European authorities concluded treaties with Non-European political leaders. It considers the theoretical discussion about the position of non-European peoples within European international law. The chapter also enlarges upon the development that brought the handling of non-European territories within the interstate policy inside Europe. American societies were incorporated into the collective of Spanish or Portuguese subjects. Although the respective colonial administrations in the course of protective legislation for the Indians restored some personal rights, the colonial administrations exercised all sovereign rights of indigenous societies. Apart from a few theoretical reflections and treatises, European international law regarding non-European territories was oriented throughout the seventeenth century towards the economic interests of the colonial powers. Still, during the sixteenth century, the English crown had sent out expeditions to America to discover and settle new territories.
