the british were the single least shitty empire to be colonized by in the history of empires and it’s not remotely close. they built infrastructure and state bureaucracies and believed that they had at least some moral obligations towards those they colonized. the spanish? monsters. the french? cruel sadists. the russians? practically mongols wearing a european mien. the only other candidates which come remotely close in argument if not in fact are empires which are so poorly documented or deliberately obscurantist of atrocity that wishful thinking and ethnonationalism fills in the gaps (I’m looking at you india and china). the reason they’re so hated is because they were so successful. their works still exist, their scion nations still exist. their legacy is having created the only societies on earth which are simultaneously diverse, prosperous, and free.