I tend to rankle when people compare the colonialism of the last few centuries with the pre-capitalist expansion and settlement of ancient societies. It seems like there's a lot of daylight between the English founding Jamestown and ancient Ionians founding Massalia or w/e.
But what do Hexbear's historians think? Is it fundamentally the same social phenomenon across time or is capitalist settler-colonialism its own unique thing?
It's basically the same phenomenon though the specifics of colonialism vary widely so it's hard to compare such broad categories as "ancient" and "modern" colonialism. In both times you have extreme violence, slavery, and extraction and in both times you can find examples of cohabitation and assimilation.
The thing that is disturbing is when people try to justify ongoing colonialism with far past colonialism, as if the Romans settling Gaul and wiping out the native Celts somehow justifies the ongoing colonial projects in the Americas.
I probably should have clarified, this is what rankles me.