A realistic look at empire and settler colonialism. A comparative gut punch.

But sorry, no using it as some sanctimonious tool to bash western society, let's look at the whole picture and put the halo into your rectum, along with the incessent Canadian apologies.

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“Settler colonialism”—a buzzword that’s ballooned over the last 75 years, exploding like a festering boil in the past decade.

It’s slung around with a rancid mix of self-loathing and pretentious swagger, usually in incoherent, thoughtless screeds against the West’s sins.

You’d think history’s just a highlight reel of white devils—British, American, Spanish—trampling noble savages while the rest of the world’s empires get a free pass.

We’re to believe humanity wasn’t a churning mess of migration, interbreeding, and butchery since prehistory and that Indigenous life was like a Grateful Dead Concert making sweet love to a climate change protest.

Bollocks.

History’s a gore-streaked shitshow, not a therapy session for your confirmation bias. So let’s dissect settler colonialism and empire—all of it—warts, guts, and all.

It will be as much fun as lancing a boil.

You’d think the British Empire, the American sprawl, and the Spanish conquistadors invented this game—greedy bastards stomping pristine Edens, right?

That’s the tripe peddled by latte-sipping twats who’ve never cracked a book past their woke syllabus.

But widen the lens: empires weren’t a European copyright. The Mongols, Ottomans, and a parade of psychopaths turned conquest into a crimson masterpiece, dwarfing the West’s body counts and loot piles.

And let’s torch the myth that empires never did a damn thing good—especially in Canada, where pre-settler indigenous weren’t weaving flower crowns but hacking each other apart in a starvation-racked, cannibal-infested hellhole.

Here’s the unvarnished, stinking truth about empires, their atrocities, and—yes—the scraps of progress they tossed amidst the carnage.

Oh, and society’s been a sweaty orgy of movement and murder since the first ape-man crawled out of the muck—nobody’s pure, nobody’s static, history should be about truths and facts, not cherry-picking details to fit one’s political agenda or one’s unceasing compulsion to confuse self-hatred with moral superiority.

Ancient Empires: Bloodbaths with Benefits

The Assyrian Empire (c. 2500–609 BCE)

The Assyrians were the original gore lords. They didn’t just conquer—they skinned captives alive, staking their dripping hides as billboards of terror. Reliefs from Ashurnasirpal II brag of 3,000 flayed at Umm al-Ghazā’, their flesh peeled like overripe fruit, while impaled rebels rotted on spikes—tens of thousands per campaign, per Sennacherib’s annals.

Slavery? They dragged off entire cities—100,000 from Israel alone—chained and broken.

Cannibalism was not recorded, but starvation drove survivors to chew dirt. Still, these sadists built aqueducts to water their blood-soaked fields and the Nineveh library, stuffing it with 30,000 tablets. So, while carving your guts out, they might’ve scribbled you a road map.

Isn’t civilisation precious?

The Persian Empire (c. 550–330 BCE)

The Persians played “nice” imperialists—if “nice” means hacking rebels into mince and torching Athens to ash. Xerxes’ Greco-Persian wars left 50,000+ corpses rotting in fields, per Herodotus, with dissenters’ heads lopped and stuck on poles.

Slavery wasn’t their headline act—more a casual 10–20% of the population, per Xenophon—but they’d butcher whole towns if the tax didn’t flow.

There was no cannibalism, but famine followed their scorched-earth marches. Still, the Royal Road stretched 2,700 km, carts rumbling with trade, and they let you pray to your gods if you coughed up the coin.

Cross them, though, and your entrails hit the sand—benevolence with a butcher’s bill.

The Roman Empire (c. 27 BCE–476 CE)

Rome was a meat grinder with a swagger.

Slavery was their backbone—10–15 million over centuries, says historian Keith Hopkins, 30% of the empire at peak—chained in mines ‘til their bones snapped or gutted in arenas for laughs.

Carthage?

One hundred fifty thousand were hacked or burned; survivors were sold, kids included. Crucifixions? They didn’t just go after Jesus.

Thousands—6,000 after Spartacus alone—nails through wrists, slow suffocation, flies on the wounds.

Cannibalism popped up in sieges; Josephus says Jews in 70 CE Jerusalem ate their dead, gnawing sinew off bones. But Pax Romana gave 200 years of calm; roads still tread today, and laws we ape. Gore-soaked, yes; pointless, no.

Medieval and Islamic Empires: Swords and Scholars

The Arab Caliphates (632–1258 CE)

The Arab conquests were a holy bloodbath—100,000 hacked apart at Yarmouk, per Al-Tabari, skulls split by scimitars, bodies piled like wet hay.

Slavery? Millions—1,000 a day from Africa by the 9th century, castrated or worked ‘til they dropped, women raped into harems.

The Jizyah tax was a shakedown—pay or get your throat slit, a slow bleed of tyranny on non-Muslims.

Butchery? They’d lop limbs for defiance; Zoroastrian priests got their guts spilt across Persia. Cannibalism’s sparse but famine-ravaged survivors ate carrion. Yet, the Golden Age birthed algebra, optics, and hospitals—Baghdad’s scholars scribbled while the blood dried—zealots with a brain.

The Mongol Empire (1206–1368 CE)

Genghis’ horde was a slaughter machine—40 million dead, 11% of the planet, says WL historian Mark Humphries. Baghdad, 1258: up to a million throats cut, heads stacked in pyramids, babies dashed on walls—rivers ran red with guts.

Slavery? Tens of thousands per city were chained ‘til their flesh rotted; Nishapur’s women got raped and then skewered.

Butchery was art—captives flayed, boiled alive, or trampled by horses, bones crunching. Cannibalism? Starving troops ate corpses, per Marco Polo, gnashing on frozen limbs.

But the Silk Road hummed, trade crossed continents, and you could pray what you liked if you knelt—psychos with a postal service.

Early Modern and Beyond: The Usual Suspects vs. The Overlooked

The Ottoman Empire (1299–1922 CE)

The Ottomans were slave-trading maestros—3 million Africans, 1 million Europeans, castrated en masse, cocks hacked off with rusty blades, half bleeding out.

Devshirme?¹ 200,000 Christian boys were snatched, their brains washed and turned into Janissary meat shields.

The Armenian Genocide: 1.5 million starved, hacked, or marched ‘til their guts spilt—kids’ skulls bashed on rocks.

Jizyah? A tax ‘til you broke—pay or get your family gutted. Butchery? Rebels got impaled, asses split by stakes. Cannibalism is rare, but famine forced it into sieges. Still, they built the Hagia Sophia’s dome and ran a 600-year sprawl. Stability via slaughter.

The British Empire (1583–1997 CE)

The woke crowd’s whipping boy. Slavery? 3.1 million Africans shipped, per Royal African Company logs—whipped ‘til their backs were raw meat, kids drowned in holds.

Ireland’s famine: 1 million starved, bellies bloated, eating grass ‘til they shat blood. Amritsar? 379 gunned down, likely 1,000+, bodies shredded by bullets, brains on the dirt.

Butchery? Indian rebels were blown from cannons, limbs raining. No cannibalism, but starvation drove madness. Yet, they killed the slave trade in 1807, laid 70,000 miles of Indian rail, and left courts—tea-stained brutes with a legacy.

The Spanish Empire (1492–1898 CE)

The Spanish turned the Americas into a charnel house—90% of natives dead, 20 million, smallpox-eating flesh, swords splitting skulls. Encomiendas enslaved millions—worked ‘til spines cracked, kids mined ‘til lungs bled.

Butchery? Aztecs flayed alive, and heads rolled down pyramids—Cortés matched their gore. Cannibalism?

Starving conquistadors ate corpses in sieges, per Bernal Díaz. Loot? Gold ripped from corpses’ teeth. Still, they built universities (Mexico City, 1551), spread laws (ignored), and birthed Latin America—genocidal artists.