The European oligarchy has displayed extreme levels of sadism and violence over many centuries, first internally with century after century of murderous wars, and then extended across the globe through its colonial expansion. For example, the 30 Years War fought between 1618 and 1648 within the Holy Roman Empire. The Reformation of the sixteenth century had caused open warfare between protestants and catholics, and had removed a shared religion that compensated for weak central control. The result was a century and a half of conflict as over 300 sub-imperial states fought it out for supremacy, sometimes even between states of the same religious affiliation, culminating in the 30 years war. In parts of Germany the population declined by over fifty percent.
The surfeit of small and medium sized nations, together with the overlapping authorities of religion (the Pope), imperial, national and regional leaders fostered near continuous conflict within Europe over many, many hundreds of years. War is the mother of invention, and the continual wars together with the transfer of eastern technologies to Europe along the Silk Road land bridge between the East and West, that was greatly enhanced by the Mongol Empire during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, facilitated rapid development and technological adoption. The eastern technologies included the Arabic numerical system, medical knowledge, gunpowder and firearms, and geography and cartography from the much more advanced and stable empires of China, India and the Middle East. The blocking of the Silk Road by the Ottoman Empire in 1453 was a major driver of European colonization, as the Europeans strove for another route to the East.
Overlapping the 30 Years War was the 80 Years War (1566 to 1648) of the Dutch against their Spanish imperial overlords. This financially destroyed the Spanish Empire while the Dutch Republic became a commercial and colonial powerhouse. The Dutch-Portuguese War (1598 to 1663) can be seen as an extension of this, a war over who would control foreign colonies through which the Dutch first established a colonial empire. The Portuguese were able to keep some of their African colonies, as well as their South American ones, but the Dutch took colonies in Africa and Asia that controlled the Spice Trade. The basis of the period called the Dutch Golden Age (1588 to 1672), one that was not so golden for the colonized. The nation of the Netherlands hides a dark history as a global colonist, perfecting many of the sadistic methods of imperial and colonial domination. Detailed here, and below.