What is the message of the poem "The White Man's Burden"?

The message of the poem "The White Man's Burden" can be understood in part by looking at its historical context. Its author, Rudyard Kipling, was British, and had spent much of his life in British colonies. The poem was written in the immediate aftermath of the Spanish-American War, when a major debate was raging in the United States over the question of American annexation of the Philippines. The island nation, long a Spanish colony, had...

The message of the poem "The White Man's Burden" can be understood in part by looking at its historical context. Its author, Rudyard Kipling, was British, and had spent much of his life in British colonies. The poem was written in the immediate aftermath of the Spanish-American War, when a major debate was raging in the United States over the question of American annexation of the Philippines. The island nation, long a Spanish colony, had been taken from Spain as a result of the war. Some Americans argued for granting independence to the Philippines, others that the United States should make the Philippines an American territory. Kipling's poem was published in an American magazine, and it argued that the United States, as a nation of people allegedly superior in technology, culture, and political systems, should take up the "burden" of spreading these blessings to supposedly primitive people in the Philippines. Kipling does not think that the people of this nation, who he views condescendingly as "half devil and half child" will appreciate this sacrifice, and they will indeed hate and resist the Americans. Hence his use of the term "burden". But he claims that taking up this responsibility is one of the things that makes a great nation great. Kipling's poem does not consider that the the native people in question might have been capable of deciding what their future should be, and is often synonymous with the racism that underlay imperialism.