The White Man 's Burden - wikipedia The White Man 's Burden For the book by William Easterly, see William Easterly. `` White Man 's Burden '' redirects here. For the 1995 film, see White Man 's Burden ( film ). The British John Bull and the American Uncle Sam bear The White Man 's Burden ( Apologies to Rudyard Kipling ), taking the coloured peoples of the world to civilisation. ( Judge magazine, 1 April 1899 ) `` The White Man 's Burden : The United States and the Philippine Islands '' is a 1899 poem by Rudyard Kipling about the Philippine -- American War ( 1899 -- 1902 ), which invites the U.S. to assume colonial control of that country. The poem was published in The New York Sun on 10 February 1899. Originally, Kipling wrote the poem for the Diamond Jubilee celebration of Queen Victoria 's reign ( 1837 -- 1901 ), but it was exchanged for the poem `` Recessional '', also by Kipling. Later, he rewrote the poem `` The White Man 's Burden '' to address the American colonization of the Philippine Islands, a Pacific Ocean archipelago conquered from Imperial Spain, in the three - month Spanish -- American War ( 1898 ) ; the birth of the American Empire. The poem exhorts the reader and the listener to embark upon the enterprise of empire, yet gives somber warning about the costs involved ; nonetheless, American imperialists understood the phrase The white man 's burden to justify imperialism as a noble enterprise of civilization, conceptually related to the American philosophy of Manifest Destiny. The title and themes of `` The White Man 's Burden '' ostensibly make the poem about Eurocentric racism and about the belief of the Western world that industrialisation is the way to civilise the Third World. Contents 1 History 2 Poem 3 Literary responses 4 See also 5 Notes 6 References 7 External links History The White Man 's Burden : civilising the illiterate savage. ( Detroit Journal, 1898 ) Wikisource has original text related to this article : Benjamin Tillman 's speech to the Senate on February 7, 1899 The poem of `` The White Man 's Burden '' was first published in the 10 February 1899 edition of the New York Sun, a McLure 's newspaper. Three days earlier, on 7 February 1899, to the senate floor, Senator Benjamin Tillman had read aloud three stanzas of `` The White Man 's Burden '' in argument against ratification of the Treaty of Paris, and that the U.S should renounce claim of authority over the Philippine Islands. To that effect, Senator Tillman asked : Why are we bent on forcing upon them a civilization not suited to them, and which only means, in their view, degradation and a loss of self - respect, which is worse than the loss of life itself ? Four days later, on 11 February 1899, the U.S. Congress ratified the `` Treaty of Peace between the United States of America and the Kingdom of Spain '' ( Treaty of Paris, 1898 ), which established American imperial jurisdiction upon the archipelago of the Philippine Islands, in the Pacific Ocean, near the Asian mainland. Kipling included his poem in his 1903 collection The Five Nations. Poem The white man 's burden as advertising in the 1890s. The imperialist interpretation of `` The White Man 's Burden '' ( 1899 ) proposes that the white man has a moral obligation to rule the non-white peoples of the Earth, whilst encouraging their economic, cultural, and social progress through colonialism. In the later 20th century, in the context of decolonisation and the Developing World, the phrase `` the white man 's burden '' was emblematic of the `` well - intentioned '' aspects of Western colonialism and `` Eurocentrism ''. The poem 's imperialist interpretation also includes the milder, philanthropic colonialism of the missionaries : The implication, of course, was that the Empire existed not for the benefit -- economic or strategic or otherwise -- of Britain, itself, but in order that primitive peoples, incapable of self - government, could, with British guidance, eventually become civilized ( and Christianized ). The poem positively represents colonialism as the moral burden of the white race, which is divinely destined to civilise the brutish and barbarous parts of the world ; to wit, the Filipino people are `` new - caught, sullen peoples, half - devil and half - child ''. Although imperialist beliefs were common currency in the culture of that time, there were opponents to Kipling 's poetic misrepresentation of imperial conquest and colonisation, notably Mark Twain ( To the Person Sitting in Darkness, 1901 ) and William James ; for them, `` The White Man 's Burden '' was plain of manner, meaning, and intent. Kipling offered the poem to Theodore Roosevelt, then governor of New York state ( 1899 -- 1900 ), to help him politically persuade anti-imperialist Americans to accept the annexation of the Philippine Islands to the United States. Kipling 's literary work extolling the virtues of British colonialism in India was popular in the U.S. ; thus, in September 1898, Kipling could tell Governor Roosevelt : Now, go in and put all the weight of your influence into hanging on, permanently, to the whole Philippines. America has gone and stuck a pick - axe into the foundations of a rotten house, and she is morally bound to build the house over, again, from the foundations, or have it fall about her ears. In the event, the Norton Anthology of English Literature thematically aligns the poem `` The White Man 's Burden '' ( 1899 ) with Kipling 's beliefs that the British Empire ( 1583 -- 1945 ) was the Englishman 's `` Divine Burden to reign God 's Empire on Earth. '' Like much of his work, The White Man 's Burden ( 1899 ) is a poetic celebration of imperialism, which Rudyard Kipling believed eventually would benefit the colonised peoples. Literary responses The cartoonist William H. Walker ridicules the colonial hypocrisy inherent to `` the white man 's burden ''. ( Life magazine ) In the late 19th century, the philanthropic racism that Rudyard Kipling presented and defended in the poem of The White Man 's Burden ( 1899 ) provoked contemporary parodies and critical works, such as `` The Brown Man 's Burden '' ( 1899 ) by Henry Labouchère, a British politician and `` The Black Man 's Burden : A Response to Kipling '' ( April 1899 ) by H.T. Johnson, a clergyman, and Take up the Black Man 's Burden by J. Dallas Bowser. Moreover, a Black Man 's Burden Association was organised to demonstrate to the public how the colonial mistreatment of brown people in the Philippines Islands was an extension of the Jim Crow laws ( 1863 -- 1965 ) of the legal mistreatment of black Americans at home, in the U.S. Because Kipling meant the poem to push for the U.S. to annex the Philippines, the subsequent colonial war compelled more people to join the Anti-Imperialist League to oppose colonial annexation and warfare. In response to `` The White Man 's Burden '', in the New York World newspaper, another poet asked `` How may We Put it Down ? '' : We 've taken up the white man 's burden Of ebony and brown ; Now will you tell us, Rudyard How we may put it down ? Ernest Crosby wrote a poem, `` The Real White Man 's Burden '' ( 1902 ). In the Congo Free State ( 1885 -- 1908 ), the British journalist, E.D. Morel, reported the brutality of Belgian imperialism in `` The Black Man 's Burden '' ( 1903 ). In The Black Man 's Burden : The White Man in Africa, from the Fifteenth Century to World War I ( 1920 ), Morel presents a critique of the relation between the White Man 's Burden and the Black Man 's Burden. In poem `` The Black Man 's Burden ( A Reply to Rudyard Kipling ) '' ( 1920 ), Hubert Harrison counters the points of colonial - civilization that Kipling extols in `` The White Man 's Burden '' ( 1899 ), which result in the moral degradation of colonist and colonized. T.S. Eliot included the poem in his 1941 collection A Choice of Kipling 's Verse. See also The Gods of the Copybook Headings ( 1919 ), by Rudyard Kipling Industrial Revolution 1899 in literature 1899 in poetry Colonialism Rudyard Kipling bibliography Orientalism White savior Notes ^ Jump up to : Herman, Shadowing the White Man 's Burden ( 2010 ), p. 45. Jump up ^ Judd, Denis ( June 1997 ). `` Diamonds are forever : Kipling 's imperialism ; poems of Rudyard Kipling ''. History Today. 47 ( 6 ) : 37. : `` Theodore Roosevelt... thought the verses ' rather poor poetry, but good sense from the expansionist stand - point '. Henry Cabot Lodge told Roosevelt, in turn : ' I like it. I think it is better poetry than you say. ' '' ^ Jump up to : Stephen Greenblatt ( ed. ), Norton Anthology of English Literature, New York 2006 ISBN 0 - 393 - 92532 - 3. Jump up ^ Zwick, Jim ( December 16, 2005 ). Anti-Imperialism in the United States, 1898 -- 1935. Archived from the original on September 16, 2002. Jump up ^ Miller, Stuart Creighton ( 1982 ). Benevolent Assimilation : The American Conquest of the Philippines, 1899 -- 1903. Yale University Press. ISBN 0 - 300 - 03081 - 9. p. 5 : ``... imperialist editors came out in favor of retaining the entire archipelago ( using ) higher - sounding justifications related to the `` white man 's burden ''. Jump up ^ Examples of justification for imperialism based on Kipling 's poem include the following ( originally published 1899 -- 1902 ) : Opinion archive, International Herald Tribune ( February 4, 1999 ). `` In Our Pages : 100, 75 and 50 Years Ago ; 1899 : Kipling 's Plea ''. International Herald Tribune : 6. : `` An extraordinary sensation has been created by Mr. Rudyard Kipling 's new poem, The White Man 's Burden, just published in a New York magazine. It is regarded as the strongest argument yet published in favor of expansion. '' Dixon, Thomas ( 1902 ). The Leopard 's Spots -- A Romance of the White Man 's Burden 1865 -- 1900... Full text of a novel by Thomas Dixon, Jr. praising the Ku Klux Klan, published online by The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Jump up ^ Pimentel, Benjamin ( October 26, 2003 ). The Philippines ; `` Liberator '' Was Really a Colonizer ; Bush 's Revisionist History. The San Francisco Chronicle. p. D3. : charactising the poem as a `` call to imperial conquest ''. Jump up ^ `` Eurocentrism '', Encyclopedia of the Developing World, Thomas M. Leonard, Taylor & Francis, eds. 2006, ISBN 0 - 415 - 97662 - 6, p. 636. Jump up ^ Chisholm, Michael ( 1982 ). Modern World Development : A Geographical Perspective. Rowman & Littlefield, 1982, ISBN 0 - 389 - 20320 - 3, p. 12. Jump up ^ Mama, Amina ( 1995 ). Beyond the Masks : Race, Gender, and Subjectivity. Routledge, 1995, ISBN 0 - 415 - 03544 - 9, p. 39. Jump up ^ Herman, Shadowing the White Man 's Burden ( 2010 ), pp. 41 -- 42. Jump up ^ The Oxford Companion to English Literature 6th. Ed. ( 2000 ) p. 808. Jump up ^ Plamen Makariev, `` Eurocentrism '' in : Encyclopedia of the Developing World, Thomas M. Leonard, Taylor & Francis, eds. 2006, ISBN 0 - 415 - 97662 - 6, p. 636 : `` On one hand, this is the Western ' well - intended ' asporation to dominate ' the developing world. ' The formula ' the white man 's burden ' from Rudyard Kipling 's eponymous poem is emblematic in this respect ''. C.f. Chisholm, Michael ( 1982 ). Modern World Development : A Geographical Perspective. Rowman & Littlefield, 1982, ISBN 0 - 389 - 20320 - 3, p. 12 : `` This Eurocentric view of the world assumed that, but for the ' improvements ' wrought by Europeans in Latin America, in Africa and in Asia, the manifest poverty of their peoples would be even worse. '' ; Rieder, John. Colonialism and the Emergence of Science Fiction 2008. Wesleyan University Press, Middleton, Conn., p. 30 : `` The protonarrative of progress operates equally in the ideology of the ' white man 's burden ' -- the belief that non-whites are childlike innocents in need of white men 's protection -- and the assumptions that undergird Victorian anthropology. From the most legitimate scientific endeavor to the most debased and transparent prejudices runs the common assumption that the relation of the colonizing socieities to the colonized ones is that of the developed, modern present to its own undeveloped, primitive past. '' Jump up ^ David Cody, `` The growth of the British Empire '', VictorianWeb, ( Paragraph 4 ) Jump up ^ John V. Denson ( 1999 ). The Costs of War : America 's Pyrrhic Victories. Transaction Publishers. pp. 405 -- 406. ISBN 978 - 0 - 7658 - 0487 - 7 ( note ff. 28 & 33 ). Jump up ^ Wolpert, Stanley ( 2006 ) Jump up ^ Brantlinger, Patrick ( 2007 ) `` Kipling 's ' The White Man 's Burden ' and its Afterlives '' English Literature in Transition 1880 -- 1920, 50.2, pp. 172 -- 191 Jump up ^ Kipling, Rudyard ( 1990 ) The Letters of Rudyard Kipling, Thomas Pinney, Editor. London, Macmillan, Vol II, p. 350. Jump up ^ What Will Happen In Afghanistan ? ``. United Press International. 26 September 2001. Jump up ^ Langer, William ( 1935 ). A Critique of Imperialism. New York : Council on Foreign Relations, Inc. p. 6. Jump up ^ Demkin, Stephen ( 1996 ). Manifest destiny -- Lecture notes. USA : Delaware County Community College. Jump up ^ Labouchère, Henry ( 1899 ). `` The Brown Man 's Burden '' an anti-imperialist parody of Kipling 's white - burden poem. ^ Jump up to : `` '' The Black Man 's Burden `` : A Response to Kipling ''. History Matters. American Social History Productions. Retrieved April 12, 2016. Jump up ^ Brantlinger, Patrick. Taming Cannibals : Race and the Victorians. Cornell University Press, 2011. p215 Jump up ^ Akbar, M.J. ( June 16, 2003 ). `` How May We Put it Down ? ''. YaleGlobal Online. Jump up ^ Crosby, Ernest ( 1902 ). The Real White Man 's Burden. Funk and Wagnalls Company. pp. 32 -- 35. Published online by History Matters, American Social History Project, CUNY and George Mason University. Jump up ^ `` The Black Man 's Burden '' Jump up ^ `` The Black Man 's Burden '' Jump up ^ Morel, Edmund ( 1903 ). The Black Man 's Burden. Fordham University. Jump up ^ `` The Black Man 's Burden '' Jump up ^ http://www.expo98.msu.edu/people/Harrison.htm References A Companion to Victorian Poetry, Alison Chapman ; Blackwell, Oxford, 2002. Chisholm, Michael ( 1982 ). Modern World Development : A Geographical Perspective. Rowman & Littlefield, 1982, ISBN 0 - 389 - 20320 - 3. Cody, David. The growth of the British Empire. The Victorian Web, University Scholars Program, National University of Singapore, November 2000. Crosby, Ernest ( 1902 ). The Real White Man 's Burden. Funk and Wagnalls Company, 32 -- 35. Dixon, Thomas ( 1902 ). The Leopard 's Spots -- A Romance of the White Man 's Burden 1865 -- 1900. Encyclopedia of India. Ed. Stanley Wolpert. Vol. 3. Detroit : charles Scribner 's Sons, 2006, p. 35 -- 36. 4 vols. `` Eurocentrism ''. In Encyclopedia of the Developing World. Ed. Thomas M. Leonard, Taylor & Francis, 2006, ISBN 0 - 415 - 97662 - 6. Greenblatt, Stephen ( ed. ). Norton Anthology of English Literature, New York 2006 ISBN 0 - 393 - 92532 - 3 Kipling. Fordham University. Full text of the poem. Labouchère, Henry ( 1899 ). `` The Brown Man 's Burden ''. Mama, Amina ( 1995 ). Beyond the Masks : Race, Gender, and Subjectivity. Routledge, 1995, ISBN 0 - 415 - 03544 - 9. Miller, Stuart Creighton ( 1982 ). Benevolent Assimilation : The American Conquest of the Philippines, 1899 -- 1903. Yale University Press. ISBN 0 - 300 - 03081 - 9. Murphy, Gretchen ( 2010 ). Shadowing the White Man 's Burden : U.S. Imperialism and the Problem of the Color Line. NYU Press. ISBN 978 - 0 - 8147 - 9619 - 1 Pimentel, Benjamin ( October 26, 2003 ). `` The Philippines ; `` Liberator '' Was Really a Colonizer ; Bush 's revisionist history ``. The San Francisco Chronicle : D3. Sailer, Steve ( 2001 ). `` What Will Happen In Afghanistan ? ''. United Press International, 26 September 2001. `` The White Man 's Burden. '' McClure 's Magazine 12 ( Feb. 1899 ). The Shining. Jack Nicholson 's character Jack, uses the phrase to refer to whiskey. External links Find more about `` The White Man 's Burden '' at Wikipedia 's sister projects Media from Commons Texts from Wikisource Data from Wikidata The text of the poem at Fordham University The White Man 's Burden public domain audiobook at LibriVox White people Caucasian race European peoples West Asian peoples North African peoples Bold refers to countries and territories in which White / European people are the majority group Worldwide diaspora Africa Algeria Angola Botswana Democratic Republic of the Congo Kenya Morocco Namibia Saint Helena South Africa Tunisia Zambia Zimbabwe Asia Pakistan United States Canada Bermuda Bahamas Barbados Cayman Islands Israel Jamaica Suriname Trinidad and Tobago Latin America Argentina Bolivia Brazil Colombia Costa Rica Cuba Dominican Republic Ecuador El Salvador Guatemala Haiti Honduras Mexico Nicaragua Peru Puerto Rico Uruguay Venezuela Oceania Australia New Caledonia New Zealand Historical concepts Apartheid Aryan First white child Honorary whites Play the white man Racial whitening Branqueamento / Blanqueamiento White Australia policy The White Man 's Burden White gods Sociological phenomena and theories Acting white ( Passing as white ) Angry white male Missing white woman syndrome White flight White fragility White guilt White privilege Whiteness studies Whitewashed film roles White savior U.S. caricatures and stereotypes Poor Whites Redlegs Rednecks Mountain whites Identity politics in the U.S. US definitions of whiteness One - drop rule Christian Identity Non-Hispanic whites White Anglo - Saxon Protestant Old Stock Americans White ethnic White Hispanic White nationalism White pride White separatism White supremacy Scientific racism Human skin color Color terminology for race Alpine Armenoid Dinaric East Baltic Irano - Afghan Mediterranean Commons Rudyard Kipling Novels The Light that Failed ( 1891 ) Captains Courageous ( 1896 ) Kim ( 1901 ) Collections Plain Tales from the Hills ( 1888 ) Soldiers Three ( 1888 ) The Story of the Gadsbys ( 1888 ) In Black and White ( 1888 ) The Phantom ' Rickshaw and other Eerie Tales ( 1888 ) Under the Deodars ( 1888 ) Wee Willie Winkie and Other Child Stories ( 1888 ) From Sea to Sea and Other Sketches, Letters of Travel ( 1889 ) Barrack - Room Ballads ( 1892, poetry ) Many Inventions ( 1893 ) The Jungle Book ( 1894 ) `` Mowgli 's Brothers '' `` Kaa 's Hunting '' `` Tiger ! Tiger ! '' `` Rikki - Tikki - Tavi '' The Second Jungle Book ( 1895 ) `` Letting in the Jungle '' `` Red Dog '' All the Mowgli Stories ( c. 1895 ) The Seven Seas ( 1896, poetry ) The Day 's Work ( 1898 ) Stalky & Co. ( 1899 ) Just So Stories ( 1902 ) The Five Nations ( 1903, poetry ) Puck of Pook 's Hill ( 1906 ) Rewards and Fairies ( 1910 ) The Fringes of the Fleet ( 1915, non-fiction ) Debits and Credits ( 1926 ) Limits and Renewals ( 1932 ) Rudyard Kipling 's Verse : Definitive Edition ( 1940 ) A Choice of Kipling 's Verse ( by T.S. Eliot, 1941 ) Poems `` The Absent - Minded Beggar '' `` The Ballad of the `` Clampherdown '' '' `` The Ballad of East and West '' `` The Beginnings '' `` The Bell Buoy '' `` The Betrothed '' `` Big Steamers '' `` Boots '' `` Cold Iron '' `` Dane - geld '' `` Danny Deever '' `` A Death - Bed '' `` The Female of the Species '' `` Fuzzy - Wuzzy '' `` Gentleman ranker '' `` The Gods of the Copybook Headings '' `` Gunga Din '' `` Hymn Before Action '' `` If -- '' `` In the Neolithic Age '' `` The King 's Pilgrimage '' `` The Last of the Light Brigade '' `` The Lowestoft Boat '' `` Mandalay '' `` My Boy Jack '' `` Recessional '' `` A Song in Storm '' `` The Sons of Martha '' `` Submarines '' `` The Sweepers '' `` Tommy '' `` Ubique '' `` The White Man 's Burden '' `` The Widow at Windsor '' Short stories ``. 007 '' `` The Arrest of Lieutenant Golightly '' `` Baa Baa, Black Sheep '' `` Bread upon the Waters '' `` The Broken Link Handicap '' `` The Butterfly that Stamped '' `` Consequences '' `` The Conversion of Aurelian McGoggin '' `` Cupid 's Arrows '' `` The Devil and the Deep Sea '' `` The Drums of the Fore and Aft '' `` Fairy - Kist '' `` False Dawn '' `` A Germ - Destroyer '' `` His Chance in Life '' `` His Wedded Wife '' `` In the House of Suddhoo '' `` Kidnapped '' `` Learoyd, Mulvaney and Ortheris '' `` Lispeth '' `` The Man Who Would Be King '' `` A Matter of Fact '' `` Miss Youghal 's Sais '' `` The Mother Hive '' `` Ortheris '' `` The Other Man '' `` The Rescue of Pluffles '' `` The Ship that Found Herself '' `` The Sing - Song of Old Man Kangaroo '' `` The Taking of Lungtungpen '' `` Three and -- an Extra '' `` The Three Musketeers '' `` Thrown Away '' `` Toomai of the Elephants '' `` Watches of the Night '' `` Wireless '' `` Yoked with an Unbeliever '' Related Bibliography Bateman 's home Indian Railway Library Ritual of the Calling of an Engineer Iron Ring Law of the jungle Aerial Board of Control My Boy Jack ( 1997 play ) Rudyard Kipling : A Remembrance Tale ( 2006 documentary ) My Boy Jack ( 2007 film ) Family Elsie Bambridge ( daughter ) John Kipling ( son ) John Lockwood Kipling ( father ) MacDonald sisters ( mother 's family ) Stanley Baldwin ( cousin ) Georgiana Burne - Jones ( aunt ) Edward Burne - Jones ( uncle ) Philip Burne - Jones ( cousin ) Edward Poynter ( uncle ) Alfred Baldwin ( uncle ) Retrieved from `` https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=The_White_Man%27s_Burden&oldid=802378984 '' Categories : 1899 in international relations 1899 poems Anti-black racism Anti-Filipino sentiment Anti-indigenous racism British colonisation in Africa Eurocentrism History of the Philippines ( 1898 -- 1946 ) Imperialism Philippine -- American War Poetry by Rudyard Kipling Racism in the United Kingdom White supremacy Works about New Imperialism Works originally published in McClure 's Hidden categories : Use British English from July 2011 Articles with LibriVox links Talk Contents About Wikipedia Cymraeg Deutsch Español فارسی Français 한국어 Bahasa Indonesia Italiano עברית മലയാളം Nederlands Norsk Norsk nynorsk Polski Português Русский Suomi Svenska Українська 中文 Edit links This page was last edited on 25 September 2017, at 20 : 12. 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Question: what was another name for the white mans burden
Answer: The United States and the Philippine Islands