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The phrase the white man’s burden designates the task, believed by white people (especially white colonisers) to be incumbent upon them, of imposing Western values and culture on the non-white inhabitants of a country, especially a (former) European colony.
—Cf. also the phrase the white man’s grave.
The phrase the white man’s burden was popularised by the British poet, short-story writer and novelist Joseph Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936) in The White Man’s Burden (1899). In this poem, about the Philippine-American War (1899-1902), Kipling exhorted the USA to assume colonial control of the Filipino people and their country.
But, in fact, in American English, this phrase predates Kipling’s poem, and, in early use, often referred to the relations between European Americans and African Americans.
These are, in chronological order, the earliest occurrences (unrelated to Kipling’s poem) of the white man’s burden that I have found:
1-: From A Demand—Where is the Supply?, published in the Southern Christian Advocate (Macon, Georgia, USA) of Thursday 21st September 1865 [page 2, column 1]:
Our treatment of the blacks should be such as to stimulate their labor, and to give them every possible aid in making that labor productive. We believe Southern people are disposed to do this, from an interest in the negro, from old association, from a sense of justice and from compassion. If these motives fail to secure to him sympathy, direction and aid in the judicious and profitable employment of his labor, then let self-interest appeal for him. The class must be supported. If it does not support itself, the whites must do what it fails in—do it, at least until production by the class equals its consumption. We should do all we can to hasten that result, not by promoting the diminution of the race, but by stimulating its industry. Christianity—humanity forbid the former, a wise economy recommends the latter course; for that point reached, addition to the general wealth begins and not only is the white man’s burden removed, but the other race begins to promote the material prosperity of the country.
2-: From Local—Very, published in the Union Springs Times (Union Springs, Alabama, USA) of Wednesday 30th January 1867 [page 3, column 1]:
We do not want slavery back again. It was the white man’s burden, the negro’s blessing; but if the negro be a necessary clement in the industry of the Southern States, or certain of them, then, so sure as the kinks in his wool, he must occupy, in order to be useful, a subordinate position.
3-: From Indians in the Public Schools, published in the Tacoma Daily News (Tacoma, Washington, USA) of Tuesday 27th November 1894 [page 4, column 2]—this article was about “the new policy of the commissioner of Indian affairs to get as many Indian children as possible under public school instruction”—here, the phrase is all the white man’s burdens, in the plural:
The government pays for such public school education where the parents of the scholars are not citizens; but the superintendent adds: “When the Indian becomes a citizen he should be permitted not only to live under the white man’s laws, but also be required to share with him all responsibilities and to enjoy all the white man’s burdens.
4-: From Suffrage Regulation in North Carolina, published in The Philadelphia Record (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA) of Monday 20th February 1899 [page 4, column 3]:
The amendments to the Constitution of North Carolina limiting the right of suffrage so as to disfranchise ignorant negroes have passed both branches of the General Assembly […]. Before they can become operative the amendments must be submitted to a vote of the people for final ratification; but there is hardly room for doubt that they will be adopted.
Thus State after State in the South has been compelled to defend itself by educational and taxing devices against the negro in politics. […] But the negro is now furnished with a new incitement to educate himself and to become a property holder and taxpayer, thus qualifying himself for the exercise of the suffrage; the whites are the better prepared to carry “the white man’s burden.”
5-: From one of the unconnected paragraphs making up the first column of the fourth page of the Lawrence Chieftain (Mount Vernon, Missouri, USA) of Thursday 23rd February 1899—the meaning of this paragraph is obscure:
The wives in Manila wear nothing; by “white man’s burden” means dry goods bills for the men when they become civilized.
6-: From one of the unconnected paragraphs making up the column Local News, published in the Lawrence Chieftain (Mount Vernon, Missouri, USA) of Thursday 11th May 1899 [page 5, column 1]:
Operating the lawn mower is fast becoming the white man’s burden.
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