The White Man's Burden

The speaker in the poem has a clear and consistent point of view, which he reveals in the first line and emphasizes throughout the poem. He accomplishes this through the repetition of that first line at the beginning of each stanza and by amplifying the central point. The key word, other than the speaker addressing the white race, is “burden.” The colonial mission is a moral obligation that will demand time, patience, and sacrifice.

The poem, however, contains ironies of which the speaker is unaware. Not once does he acknowledge that a material advantage might accrue to the imperial power. (If the United States were to take over the Philippines, for example, it might gain new commercial opportunities in Asia.) On the contrary, the colonial takeover is presented as solely for the benefit of the subject people; it is a selfless rather than a selfish mission. The importance of it is implied in Line 2, in which the speaker implores the United States to send its “best” men to the Philippines to help the people there. In other words, this is not a minor expedition that anyone can accomplish; the nation must give it a high priority because it concurs with the larger moral duty that falls to the white race in its relations with nonwhite people.

There is unintentional irony in Line 4, however, when the colonizers are presented as serving their “captives’ need.” In claiming that the colonizers are helping the “captives,” the speaker is also admitting to this captivity. The irony recurs in Line 7 in the phrase “new-caught.” The reason for the unconscious contradictory thinking is shown in the remaining lines of this stanza: According to the colonial view, the native people—in this case the Filipinos—cannot govern themselves because they are heathens (“half-devil,” Line 8) and lack maturity (“half-child,” Line 8). The reference to “half-devil” might reflect the long-held but now out of fashion Christian belief that the gods of the heathens were devils.

In all the subsequent stanzas, the speaker encourages a doubtful government and nation to commit to a desired course of action. Stanza 2 emphasizes the patience and humility required for this mission’s success. Those who are entrusted with it must understand their dedication is to the advancement and welfare of others rather than of themselves (“To seek another’s profit, / And work another’s gain,” Lines 15-16). Again, there is unintentional irony in the word “profit”: The speaker does not consider that the colonists might derive material profit from their mission, only that their sole purpose is to help others.

Stanza 3 musters similar arguments in more specific form. The colonists will achieve great humanitarian goals, such as peace and freedom from famine and disease. Who would not, the idealistic speaker implies, want to be part of such an enterprise? The second half of the stanza, however, strikes a different note. The colonizers, even though they have devoted themselves to improving the lot of the indigenous people, can expect no thanks for it, and all their efforts might come to naught due to the “sloth” (Line 23) of the people they are trying so hard to help. This, once more, is the titular “burden”: to act selflessly but to prepare for disappointment. The racist implication is that the nonwhite races are not equal to the white race in creating an advanced, prosperous, and healthy society.

After Stanza 4, in which the speaker emphasizes the long-term nature of the project, Stanza 5 returns to the theme in the second half of Stanza 3. The speaker adopts a tacit position of superiority and states that the colonizers, the benefactors of the subject race, will not be loved, despite the good they bring. On the contrary, they will face “blame” (Line 35) and “hate” (Line 36). The people will claim they were better off in their former state. The speaker has them say, “‘Why brought ye us from bondage / Our loved Egyptian night?’” (Lines 39-40). These words allude to a story from the Old Testament in which God delivers the Jews from slavery in Egypt and leads them to the Promised Land.

Stanza 6 repeats the notion of moral obligation as a challenge; to ignore it would be to fail to live up to the highest ideals of the white man; thus, “Ye dare not stoop to less” (Line 42). The remainder of the stanza repeats the now familiar idea that the colonized people, despite the steadfast efforts of those who rule them, will resent what has been done on their behalf. There are two instances of unintentional irony here: First, the speaker fails to consider that it might be natural for people to resent being ruled by foreigners and therefore judge them, however well-intentioned those foreigners claim to be. Second, the colonizers’ benefit might have come at a high price for the colonized. This might include, for example, the erosion of their cultural integrity in the face of competing Western values.

Stanza 7 is addressed once more to the United States rather than all Western colonial empires: “Have done with childish days—” (Line 50) is a reference to a young nation. Great Britain, in contrast, was a colonial power for well over a century at the time this poem was written. The speaker thus encourages the United States to achieve adulthood (“manhood,” Line 53) as a nation by taking up the burden that naturally falls to its dominant race. This suggests the paternalistic nature of the proposed colonial mission. The United States presents itself as the adult while the colonized people are like children needing guidance and training.