POLL: Most 'evil' states in history

What is to you the most evil state that existed before 1900?

  • Austria(-Hungary)

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Bulgaria

    Votes: 2 0.5%
  • Byzantine Empire

    Votes: 4 1.0%
  • Crusader States

    Votes: 15 3.8%
  • Frankish Empire

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • France (post Frankish Empire)

    Votes: 4 1.0%
  • Germany

    Votes: 6 1.5%
  • Holy Roman Empire

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Macedonian Empire

    Votes: 1 0.3%
  • Ottoman Empire

    Votes: 37 9.3%
  • Portugal

    Votes: 3 0.8%
  • Roman Empire

    Votes: 5 1.3%
  • Russia

    Votes: 7 1.8%
  • Safavid persia

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Spain

    Votes: 50 12.6%
  • United Kingdom

    Votes: 44 11.1%
  • United States

    Votes: 17 4.3%
  • Others

    Votes: 50 12.6%
  • Netherlands

    Votes: 2 0.5%
  • Mongolian Empire

    Votes: 150 37.8%

  • Total voters
    397
Well, if you ask me it is difficult to, even subjectively, decide. As there are so many ways in which an empire could be 'evil', ranging from cruelty, intolerance to hypocrisy.
So I divided them into categories:

Most people killed: Mongols

Worst for their time: The CSA or the Ottoman empire, for seceding to preserve slavery/selling rebellious Greeks into slavery in the 19th century.

Worst colonizer: my own country thanks to that bastard of a Leopold II, or maybe the Spanish Encomienda system, though in the last one part of the blame can be laid on colonial elites instead of the central government.

Worst treatment of conquered people: The Assyrians?

Worst treatment of own people: Zhang Xianzhong's Daxi dynasty

Most hypocrite: the USA, claiming everyone was created equal but holding slaves.

Most religious intolerant: Spain, I guess. Timur or the Delhi sultanate might have been worse but there it overlapped with 'worst treatment of conquered people'.


Mmh, I'm actually surprised the Aztecs didn't end up there somewhere.
 
Worst treatment of own people: Zhang Xianzhong's Daxi dynasty
Don't forget "most insane" as well for how Zhang Xianzhong justified it:
Heaven brings forth innumerable things to nurture man.
Man has nothing good with which to recompense Heaven.
Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill.
 
Top