western leaders perspective on the white man's burden

Twains most celebrated anti-imperialist essay, To the Person Sitting in Darkness, was published in the February, 1901 issue of theNorth American Review. This unit examines cartoons from the turn-of-the-century visual record that reference civilization and its nemesisbarbarism. Udo Keppler, a Puck cartoonist who was still in his twenties at the time, was more benign in his rendering of the great rapprochement. As the Heathen See Us: Reversing the Gaze. The U.S. entered the elite group of world powers with victories in the Spanish-American War (written in the clouds over the naval battle on the right). (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1938). The U.S. follows Britains imperial lead carrying people from Barbarism at the base of the hill to Civilization at its summit. Stark images such as these helped make public a subject that was generally suppressed. The Harvest in the Philippines. Frederick Thompson Richards,Life, July 6, 1899. European countries sought to colonize and plunder the wealth from regions with large populations such as Africa and Asia. It was feared that the mystical rituals and xenophobic violence of the Yi He Tuan (Boxer) secret society would overwhelm Chinas ineffectual rulers, cast the country into chaos, and hinder the trade and profits anticipated by the great powers. A year later,Judgemagazine published a two-page cartoon by Victor Gillam that sets the contemporary civilization versus barbarism debate against a grand panorama of historical carnage. As these cartoons reflect, the U.S., itself a new colonial power, was particularly threatened by the rise of Germany as a rival in the Pacific. Source:Bibliothque nationale de France. Long-standing personifications and visual symbols for countries were used by cartoonists to dramatize events to suit their message. In mid 1899,Lifepublished this chilling view of the war in the Philippines that was to drag on for several more years. Almost thou persuadest me to be a ChristianActs xxvi, 28. William H. Walker,Life, April 25, 1901. Lifepublished many graphics that showed the humanitarian costs inflicted by war and political aggressiondespoliation, looting, concentration camps, torture, and genocideoften awkwardly interspersed amongst humorous sketches and domestic scenes. Gambone, Robert L.Life on the Press The Popular Art and Illustrations of GeorgeBenjamin Luks(Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2009). Facebook. The Forbidden Book: The Philippine-American War in Political Cartoons(San Francisco: TBoli Pub. Were we to transport an army more than half way around the earth merely to listen to peace propositions? Vebers series, Les Camps de Reconcentration au Transvaal, begins with the cover image Le Silence, in which a veiled woman holds her finger to her lips, standing over the remnants of what appears to be an electric fence and a plow that suggests the earth has been tilled to bury evidence. To criticise or hold under too deep a scrutiny is to be accused of being an agent of a new type of colonialism. For publication of Global Research articles in print or other forms including commercial internet sites, contact: [emailprotected]. From Tientsin to Peking with the Allied Forces. The U.S. appears to be carried by the Philippines, Great Britain by India, and Germany by Africa. This was followed by the invasion and takeover of Puerto Rico. Le Royaume-Uni (United Kingdom) Jean Veber,LAssiette au Beurre, September 28, 1901. As Britain stepped up financial industries, shipping, and insurance to make up the deficit, global sea power took on additional significance. An Italian cartoonist who drew William II as a modern Attila beheading Chinese foes was likely inspired by his Hun speech to German soldiers shipping out to fight in the Boxer Uprising in China, delivered on July 27, 1900, in which he called for total war: Should you encounter the enemy, he will be defeated! The dignity of the bereaved Filipino in this cartoon is a stark contrast to the usual demeaning stereotypes of half devil and half child that Kipling endorsed and many cartoonists reinforced. 799820 (June 2000). Twitter. The Maine had been dispatched to Cuba to support an indigenous insurrection against Spain. The War Prayer begins with a preacher praising the nations just and holy war, and leading his congregation in praying for victory. American ships for American commerce!!. Case Study: The Boxer WarThe Boxer Uprising.Online Encyclopediaof Mass Violence(July 23, 2008). All of the hastily organized camps, for whites and blacks alike, had inadequate accommodations, wretched sanitation, and unreliable food supplies, leading to tens of thousands of deaths from disease and starvation. Expansionism promulgated under the banner of civilization could not escape being carried out in global military campaigns, referred to as the savage wars of peace in the third stanza: Such avowed paternalism towards other cultures recast the invasion of their lands as altruistic service to humankind. By the 1890s, the U.S. began to revitalize both its commercial and naval fleets. View White Man's Burden.pdf from HIST 1302 at San Antonio College. In the U.S., despite spirited resistance from Anglophobic Irish immigrants and anti-imperialist leagues, overseas military campaigns gradually gained public support. In an 1898 two-page spread inPuck, female symbols of the two nations, Columbia and Britannia, meet as mother and daughter to celebrate their reunion After Many Years. Wearing archaic breastplates and helmets, with trident and sword, these outsized, archetypal crusaders helm modern warships. When the Chinese man raises his sword, it is labeled barbarism, but when the French soldier does precisely the same thing it is a necessary blow for civilization.. The scene above turns the tables on theHarpers Weeklycover (above) and accuses foreign troops and missionaries of atrocities during the Boxer Uprising in China. The Presidents Speech. William Bengough,Life, May 24, 1900. A laughing missionary in the lead, blood-soaked soldiers of the Allied forces tread on the bodies of women and children while carrying severed heads on a pike. Source:Library of Congress, In this 1902 cartoon, Britains Boer War and goals on the African continent are identified with the march of civilization and progress against barbarism. The war with the Boers (who were ethnically Dutch and Afrikaans-speaking) took place in the South African Republic (Transvaal) and Orange Free State. For example, the light of civilization literally illuminated vicious, helpless, or clueless barbarians. We may have burnt certain villages, destroyed considerable property and incidentally slaughtered a few thousand of their sons and brothers, husbands and fathers, etc., but what did they expect? At the time, however, Twains family, acquaintances, and publisher feared the piece would be denounced as both unpatriotic and sacrilegious, and urged him not to publish it. In this 1898 cartoon, Britannia (Great Britain) welcomes Columbia (the United States) as an estranged daughter and new imperialist partner. In a run of 13 lithographs published in the July 4, 1900 issue of the French periodicalLAssiette au Beurre, the cartoonist Ren Georges Hermann-Paul was especially incisive in calling attention to this grim reality. In order to fully get along in society, indigenous populations had to assimilate to the colonists culture and many times abandon their own. Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey (2014). Imperialism was not only economic and political, but also cultural. May 26, 2022. Competency (trait) perspective. Girls are part of the obedient older class studying books labeled California, Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona. The only non-white student in the older group holds the book titled Alaska and is neatly coifed in contrast to the unruly new class made up of the Philippines, Hawaii, Porto Rico, and Cuba. All are depicted as dark-skinned and childish. They laud substandard leaders because it is how people are ruled in Africa. Warships steam over the horizon of their chests flying banners of great waterways that would ideally open the world to commerceSuez Canal (completed in 1869) and Managua Canal (projected through Nicaragua to link the Caribbean and Pacific oceansan undertaking later transferred to Panama). This early outburst of what we refer to today as clash-of-civilizations thinking did not go unchallenged, however. Mans Burden William H. Walker, cover illustration,Life, March 16, 1899. To the Person Sitting in Darkness.The North American Review. Indeed, the visual record was, in its unique way, more powerfulmore literally graphicthan words alone could ever be. The Centre of Research on Globalization grants permission to cross-post Global Research articles on community internet sites as long the source and copyright are acknowledged together with a hyperlink to the original Global Research article. He says, Take up the White Mans burden, Send forth the best ye breed John Bull Good evins! This idea is presented in a poetic way, by a British poet, Rudyard Kipling, in his poem The white mans burden written in 1898. Feng, Yongping, The Peaceful Transition of Power from the UK to the US.ChineseJournal of International Politics1 (1) pp. In the decolonisation of the developing world, the phrase the white man's burden is synonymous with colonial domination, to illustrate the falsity of the good intentions of Western neo Embracing Technologies of Domination: The Rise of Popular Imperialism in the U.S., 1898-1904. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the International Communication Association, Dresden International Congress Centre, Dresden, Germany, Jun 16, 2006. SHARE. But rivalries for commercial privileges never abated even when an eight-nation Allied military force was forged between the world powers in the summer of 1900. It was written in support of Americas attempt to annex the Philippines. (doi:10.1093/cjip/pol005), Faunce, Rev. Brandishing the flag of Civilization, Britannia leads white troops and settlers against native forces under the banner of Barbarism.. Western leaders eagerly embraced the doctrine of the white man's burden because it was a convenient justification for their expansionist policies. The wars undertaken in the name of Civilization and Progress were more savage, tortuous, and contradictory than is often recognized. To the Person Sitting in Darkness addressed Great Britains Boer War as well as the Philippine conquest and Boxer intervention. His biblical title, which came from Matthew 4:16 (The people who sat in darkness have seen a great light), picked up on many pro-imperialist themes of the times. In its final issue for 1899a time when the U.S. suppression of Filipino resistance was at its peakPuck turned to a feel-good holiday graphic to reaffirm this theme of the bounty promised to newly invaded countries and peoples. Kipling offered moral justification for the bloody war the U.S. was fighting to suppress the independent Philippine regime following Spanish rule. Historical perspective. The cartoon links might with right, as the cannon is pushed and dragged forward by clergy identified by their headgear: skullcap, biretta, clerical hat, top hat, and distinctive English-style shovel hat. Looming on the left, the Eastern Question refers to the long-standing British confrontation with Russia in the Balkans that would soon extend to conflict over Britains Cape to Cairo strategy in Africa. Newly conquered populations, described in the opening stanza as your new-caught, sullen peoples, half-devil and half-child would need sustained commitments to serve your captives needs.. The aggressive quest for new marketsChinas millions being the most covetedwas justified as part of the benevolent and inevitable spread of progress. The conduct of foreign troops in China was targeted in a searing cartoon by the French artist Thophile Steinlen. As early as mid 1899, for example,Lifecalled attention to the staggering death count among Filipinos with a cartoon titled The Harvest in the Philippines. It is now estimated that, all told, between 12,000 and 20,000 Filipino military perished in this conflict, as opposed to 4,165 killed on the U.S. side. 14-27 (May-June 1999). Turning to China, his stinging indictment extended beyond the two Anglo powers to target the Kaisers Germany plus Tsarist Russia and France. On February 15, 1898, the battleshipU.S.S. Backed by the formidable Royal Navy, Britain could maintain a policy of splendid isolation independent of European alliances for much of the century. In The Harvest in the Philippines, Uncle Sam stands, armed to the hilt, gazing at the viewer with a field of Filipino corpses lined up in rows behind him and stretching back as far as the eye can see. A Red-Letter Day. The turn of the century also witnessed emergence of articulate anti-imperialist voices worldwideand this movement had its own powerful wing of incisive graphic artists. William!! The phrase White Mans Burden caught on with many imperialists to justify the policy as noble. Their uniforms are oddly reminiscent of the Revolutionary War that had seen them as bitter adversaries a little more than a century earlier. The word Civilization (with a capital C), alongside Progress, was counterposed against the words barbarism, barbarians, and barbarity, with accompanying visual stereotypes. Bello, Walden. The material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving it for research and educational purposes. From the Cape to Cairo. White Man's Burden: The social, religious and cultural excuses to justify imperialism and gunship diplomacy Posted on March 31, 2014 by JL Admin European imperialism of the last few centuries were heavily centered on the perceived moral responsibility of its leaders toward other supposedly backward regions of the world. The human and financial cost of these extended conflicts was large. We are making such material available to our readers under the provisions of "fair use" in an effort to advance a better understanding of political, economic and social issues. She may be red-handed, and at times drunk, but she is there for business. French Satirical Drawings from LAssiette au Beurre(New York: Dover Publications, 1978). Jean Veber,LAssiette au Beurre, September 28, 1901. A Rival Who Has Come to Stay: Naval Power. 1900. The influx of cheap Western goods eroded generations-long trading patterns, while telegraph and railroad lines were constructed in violation of superstitions, eliciting deep resentment among Chinese. Uncle Sam and John Bull, as fellow soldiers, survey the globe from a parapet. Maine. Source: Houghton Library, Harvard University. Hawaii and Porto Rico are model female students. Spencer, David R. No Laughing Matter. Driven by competition with each other and economic pressures at home, the worlds major powers ventured to ever-distant lands to spread their religion, culture, power, and sources of profits. 4, pp. The anti-imperialistLifemagazine was similarly attuned to the hypocrisy of cloaking military violence in pious rhetoric. Regarding the Philippines in particular, he continues: without any desire or design on our part, the war has brought us new duties and responsibilities which we must meet and discharge as becomes a great nation on whose growth and career from the beginning the ruler of nations has plainly written the high command and pledge of civilization. The Native: Ever since my home was burned to the ground and my wife and children shot. Frederick Thompson Richards,Life, October 18, 1900. Reports of the Boxer attacks seeped out of the beleaguered area and misinformation spread, like this headline in theNew York Timeson July 30: Wave of Massacre Spreads over China. Ricard, Serge. Case Study: The Boxer WarThe Boxer Uprising., Matthews, Roy T. Britannia and John Bull: From Birth to Maturity., Miller, Bonnie M. The Image-Makers Arsenal in an Age of War and Empire, 1898 1899: A Cartoon Essay, Featuring the Work of Charles Bartholomew (of the, Murphy, Erin L. Womens Anti-Imperialism, The White Mans Burden, and the Philippine-American War,, Phillips, Richard and Jones, Rhys. U.S. regiments were transported from the Philippines to join the Allied force. Europeans often held racist ideas of their own superiority to those in foreign lands. 367-373 (1998). School Begins. Uncle Sam (to his new class in Civilization): Now, children, youve got to learn these lessons whether you want to or not! 11, Issue 40, No. The president of the First Philippine Republic, Emilio Aguinaldo, is portrayed as a barefoot savage, wild hair escaping from a dunce cap. Transatlantic dimensions of the American Anti-Imperialist Movement, 1899-1909., Feng, Yongping, The Peaceful Transition of Power from the UK to the US., Faunce, Rev. The second was the U.S. conquest and occupation of the Philippines that began in 1899. The Boxer Uprising was a godsend for the righteous exponents of a world divided, between the civilized West and barbaric Others. 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