“The White Man’s Burden”: Kipling’s Hymn to U.S. Imperialism

George Mason University ^ | 02/01/1899 | Rudyard Kipling

[NMC EXP]

In February 1899, British novelist and poet Rudyard Kipling wrote a poem entitled “The White Man’s Burden: The United States and The Philippine Islands.” In this poem, Kipling urged the U.S. to take up the “burden” of empire, as had Britain and other European nations. Published in the February, 1899 issue of McClure’s Magazine, the poem coincided with the beginning of the Philippine-American War and U.S. Senate ratification of the treaty that placed Puerto Rico, Guam, Cuba, and the Philippines under American control.

Theodore Roosevelt, soon to become vice-president and then president, copied the poem and sent it to his friend, Senator Henry Cabot Lodge, commenting that it was “rather poor poetry, but good sense from the expansion point of view.” Not everyone was as favorably impressed as Roosevelt. The racialized notion of the “White Man’s burden” became a euphemism for imperialism, and many anti-imperialists couched their opposition in reaction to the phrase.

Take up the White Man’s burden—

Send forth the best ye breed—

Go send your sons to exile

To serve your captives' need

To wait in heavy harness

On fluttered folk and wild—

Your new-caught, sullen peoples,

Half devil and half child

Take up the White Man’s burden

In patience to abide

To veil the threat of terror

And check the show of pride;

By open speech and simple

An hundred times made plain

To seek another’s profit

And work another’s gain

Take up the White Man’s burden—

And reap his old reward:

The blame of those ye better

The hate of those ye guard—

The cry of hosts ye humour

(Ah slowly) to the light:

"Why brought ye us from bondage,

“Our loved Egyptian night?”

Take up the White Man’s burden-

Have done with childish days-

The lightly proffered laurel,

The easy, ungrudged praise.

Comes now, to search your manhood

Through all the thankless years,

Cold-edged with dear-bought wisdom,

The judgment of your peers!

Source: Rudyard Kipling, “The White Man’s Burden: The United States & The Philippine Islands, 1899.” Rudyard Kipling’s Verse: Definitive Edition (Garden City, New York: Doubleday, 1929).

[Phsstpok]

The irish were never slaves, once again you ignorance abounds, neither were the Hindus or muslims but don't let facts get in the way.

don't try to tell that to an Irishman, a Hindu or a Muslim who suffered under the heel of "their betters" in the colonial era. I think they might just show you that there is no difference between someone bought and sold in an official slave market and the way the British treated their subjects in those places. A Zulu wouldn't bother explaining it to you. He'd just kill you where you stood for your ignorance.

well we never had it! (slavery)

Flat out bald faced lie. Learn your own nations history before you open your trap, you ignorant twit.

Nor have we ever asked our own citizens to sit at the back of the bus because of their colour.

Ghandi was a citizen of the British empire, admitted to practice law in England. He was living under British law in South Africa when he was beaten and thrown off of a moving train for having dared to sit in a whites only section. You cannot make stupid claims that something never happened to your citizens when your laws subjected MILLIONS to far more brutal humiliation than any atrocity ever by the worst of the Klan. The KKK learned their tactics from the British army and how it treated "British citizens" of color in the empire.

Good luck my friend, our correspondance is now at an end!

Thank you

don't go away mad, little buddy, just go away.

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