Primary Source Documents

An English View of Imperialism

The English poet Rudyard Kipling had experienced much of his country's empire first-hand. In 1899, while the United States was debating what to do with the Philippines, he published this cautionary poem in McClure's Magazine. It was the title more than the content that struck his American audience. They saw the poem not as a warning, but as a noble sentiment for empire.

The White Man's Burden

Take up the white man's burden--
Send forth the best ye breed--
Go, bind 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,
A hundred times made plain,
To seek another's profit
And work another's gain.

Take up the white man's burden--
The savage wars of peace--
Fill full the mouth of famine,
And bid the sickness cease;
And when your goal is nearest
(The end for others sought)
Watch sloth and heathen folly
Bring all our hope to nought.

Take up the white man's burden--
No iron rule of kings,
But toil of serf and sweeper--
The tale of common things.
The ports ye shall not enter,
The roads ye shall not tread,
Go, make them with your living
And mark them with your dead.

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 humor
(Ah, slowly!) toward the light:
"Why brought ye us from bondage,
Our loved Egyptian night?"

Take up the white man's burden--
Ye dare not stoop to less--
Nor call too loud on Freedom
To cloak your weariness.
By all ye will or whisper,
By all ye leave or do,
The silent sullen peoples
Shall weigh your God and you.

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.

1		What do you think Kipling means by the "white man's burden?"
2		What view does Kipling express of colonial peoples? Indicate the words and phrases that convey that viewpoint.
3		What attitude does Kipling believe colonial people have toward their colonial rulers?
4		What words or phrases suggest that Kipling sees whites as biologically or racially superior?
5		What in the tone of this poem strikes you as ironic? What point of view might the occupied of a colonial nation express upon reading the poem?