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
Is there any empire who made it their primary goal to inflict pain and suffering on people, rather than economic gain or religious expansion?
Zhang Xianzhong's regime in Sichuan kinda counts for he erected a Seven Kills Stele which proclaimed:
Heaven brings forth innumerable things to nurture man.
Man has nothing good with which to recompense Heaven.
Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill.
 
What is in your eyes the most evil state in the history before 1900?
This list needs more options.

Off the top of my head:
-Shang Dynasty (actually if you consider how much of China used to not be Han it's probably reasonable to say every Chinese dynasty should be on here)
-Delhi Sultanate
-Frankish Kingdom
-Assyria
-Carthage
-Aztecs and other participants in the Flower Wars (getting your teeth kicked in by Spain is not a get out of jail free card)
 
Some of these are kinda odd. The Austrians don't really deserve to be on that list IMO. They were vicious bastards sure, but not even up there so far as states go.

Meanwhile various Chinese dynasties easily eclipse minor states like Bulgaria (also ? as to why they are there). And Germany only existed for like 30 years.

Meanwhile some (France, the US, the UK, etc.) definitely committed evil actions, but also had good points. That's not to say those evil actions were somehow justified or forgiven, just that if we are to consider the truly the most "evil" (not really sure what that should mean really) then those would reduce the total evil of those. So...I'll vote other. The Mongols or the Macedonians are my pick from those presented, with Rome right up there.
 

Brunaburh

Gone Fishin'
No Belgium? 3 colonies, 3 genocides. That's a 100% record. If the UK, France or Soviet Union had been as bad as Belgium, the World's population would be a about half a billion lower. Obviously the US committed many genocides, but once you get below a certain population density it doesn't count, apparently.
 
I do. The only truly successful genocide in history, in that there are literally no ‘real’ Tasmanian Aborigines left, just 29,000 mixed race individuals.

By that reasoning the Maori extermination of the Chatham Island Moriori counts too. In less than thirty years, the population fell from 2000 to 101, and the last full-blooded Moriori died in the 1930s.
 
What is in your eyes the most evil state in the history before 1900?

Sorry to put it plainly but such a question can’t be answered without bias.

If I put it more rudely than plainly I would say the question does not make sense the way it is asked. Evil is the qualifies humans and human behavior, not things or entities.

States are not evil nor good. They are what they are.

The people who run States can do good or evil. The population of one country can do evil or support evil if they hope to profit from such deeds by their State, government or army.

And History has taught us that evil is everywhere. Slaves came from people that also enslaved others. Victims would have liked to make victims among others.

And nobody (or almost nobody) thinks he is the villain.
 
Top