Source:Library of Congress. Close behind them lie corpses from the Franco-Prussian War, Russia and Turkey, Napoleon and Austria. Far off in the distance, with labels reading Roman Wars and Alexandria, the artists carries his viewers back to ancient times, when the civilization myth first emerged to mask the brutal realities of politically-motivated conflicts. Expert Help. 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 small print under this graphic quoted these lines from McKinleys speech: Teaching them the truth of the common fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man, and showing that if we are not our brothers keepers we can be our brothers helpers., William! Mans Burden, emphasized its hypocrisy. nebraska teacher salary by district. Families were burned out of their homes and imprisoned in concentration camps. In contradiction to the western white mans burden narrative, both Bush and Blair presided over torture programs victimising Muslim people-of-colour. It is all too easy to assume that Americans, English, and others on the home front could not see what their nations were doing overseas. In the United States, the Boer War, conquest of the Philippines, and Boxer Uprising prompted large, detailed, sophisticated, full-color cartoons inPuckandJudge. This idea is presented in a poetic way, by a British poet, Rudyard Kipling, in his poem The white mans burden written in 1898. Many politicians used the phrase and its views as the basis for their imperialist and racist policies. By the spring of 1900, Boxer attacks were spreading toward the capital city of Beijing. Mans Burden, in the caption to thisLifecover published shortly after Kiplings poem. The famous American writer Mark Twain, for example, wrote a response, "To the Person Sitting in Darkness" that was critical of imperialism and mocked those who thought they were more enlightened than the indigenous people of these areas. What did the public back home know about the fighting of these far-off wars? The long text accompanying this grim illustration reads as follows: It appears that the Filipinos have lost confidence in Americans. Contemporary wars in the Philippines and Transvaal (the Boer War) comprise the foreground of the Think It Over battlefield. The meaning of white man's burden is a duty formerly asserted by white people to manage the affairs of nonwhite people whom they believed to be less developed. Britain stepped in to defend the rights of the immigrants, known asuitlanders(foreigners) to the Boers. However, brutally repressive policies followed that included accusations of genocide. "'The White Man's Burden' and Its Critics" Jim Zwick is an American Studies scholar and author of Confronting Imperialism: Essays on Mark Twain and the Anti-Imperialist League and Mark Twain's Weapons of Satire: Anti-Imperialist Writings on the Philippine-American War, as well as numerous book chapters and journal and magazine articles about the Anti-Imperialist Transatlantic dimensions of the American Anti-Imperialist Movement, 1899-1909.Journal of Transatlantic Studies. New commodities also meant advances in weaponry that might give neighboring countriesin particular, Germanythe potential to strike Britain. The archetypal dominance of Civilization over Barbarism is conveyed in a 1902Puckgraphic with the sweeping white figure of Britannia leading British soldiers and colonists in the Boer War. 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! In 1901, occupation forces roamed the countryside to pillage, loot, and hunt for Boxers. Civilization and its Discontents: The Boxers and Luddites as Heroes and Villains., The Ohio State University Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum, CGACGA, The Ohio State University Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum, Theodore Roosevelt Center at Dickinson State University, CGACGA, The Ohio State University, Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum, William H. Walker Cartoon Collection, Princeton University Library, The Ohio State University Cartoon Research Library. Because those in Asia, Africa, and parts of the Americas lived different lives, Europeans felt that it was their duty to civilize them into western culture and society. A scrawny female figure in the background appears to be a skull-faced depiction of Britannia, grown thin and solitary through endless pursuit of war. Britain, the more powerful military partner, shows celebrated victories over the Spanish Armada in 1588 and over the French and Spanish navies at Trafalgar in 1805. The White (!) The screen in the cartoon may refer to the early films that fed public fascination with China and the Boxer crisis, including Edisons recreation of the Bombardment of Taku Forts by the Allied Fleets (1900,view in the Library of Congress) and a four-minute British production that staged the murder of a missionary by Boxers called Attack on a China Mission (1900). Kipling was a white supremascist and wrote The White Mans Burden urging the United States to take up the burden of civilizing savage peoples alongside other European powers. The Laureate of Empire.Raritan: A Quarterly Review. www.globalresearch.ca contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. Seated around them (left to right) are a feminized Russia, Turkey, Italy, Austria, Spain, and France. The larger objective, to gain control of the Boer territories, was part of Britains colonial scheme for Cape to Cairo hegemony in Africa. 19th Century Editorial Cartoons and the Business of Race., Thompson, Roger R. Reporting the Taiyuan Massacre from, Tuffnell, Stephen. An Atlantic Triangle in the 1900s: Theodore Roosevelts special relationships with France and Britain., Spencer, David R. No Laughing Matter. 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. In the French cartoon Leur rve (Their dream), the globe is portrayed as a victim carried on a stretcher. Anti-imperialist protesters were often feminized as weak nervous Nellies and, in a play on words, as aunties. Antiwar graphics, on the other hand, informed the public about the darker side of imperial campaigns. One cannot imagine a blunter caption than the one that accompanied his 1900 cartoon forJudge: And, after all, the Philippines Are Only the Stepping-Stone to China. In Flohris image, Uncle Samheavily laden with steel, railroads, bridges, farm equipment, and the likegives a cursory nod to the spread of civilization by grasping a book titled Education and Religion. The confident giant is greeted with open arms by a diminutive yellow-clad Chinese mandarin. 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. The Origins of the Boxer War: A Multinational Study(London, New York: RoutledgeCurzon, 2003). Europeans often held racist ideas of their own superiority to those in foreign lands. The turn-of-the-century visual record tells us otherwise. The foothold in the Philippines brought China within reach. In the U.S., the 1860s Civil War generated suspicion that neutral Britain covertly supported the Confederacy. Foreign buildings and churches were torched and the Beijing-Tianjin railway and telegraph lines were dismantled, cutting communication with the capital. U.S. regiments were transported from the Philippines to join the Allied force. When applied to people and cultures, the survival of the fittest doctrine gave wealthy, technologically-advanced countries not only the right to dominate backward nations, but an imperative and duty to bring them into the modern world. In an 1895Puckcartoon, A Rival Who Has Come to Stay, John Bull gapes while Uncle Sam proudly displays his prowess as Uncle Sam the Ship Builder. The U.S. Navy moved up from twelfth to fifth place in the world. William!! The White Man's Burden Today: Good Governance and Corruption The presentation of White Man's Burden and the figure of Oystein Tveter along with the presence of such a distinguished 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. Uncle Sam and his English cousin have the world between them. Here, the United States has ingested Cuba, Porto Rico, Hawaii, and the Philippines. (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1938). China, shown gripping a schoolbook in the doorway, has not yet entered the scene. Klein, Thoralf. The Centre for Research on Globalization will not be responsible for any inaccurate or incorrect statement in this article. 12, Issue 1, pp. No quarter will be given! A number of critical cartoons of the time addressed the unsavory behavior of the civilizers themselves, and the disparity between doctrine and actions. Source: Beinecke Rare Books & Manuscripts, Yale University. Given the fact that Twain was famous and widely admired for his outspokenness, it is especially disconcerting to learn that he and his close supporters concluded that challenging the mystique of civilization and progress in such stark terms was not feasible given the political and religious fervor of the times. The caption again ironically quotes an Official Report to the War Office that praises the British soldiers bravery in the face of a fierce enemy, in this case women and children: The humanity of our soldiers is admirable and does not tire despite the ferocity of Boers., Vers le Camp de Reconcentration (To the Concentration Camp). Columbia Studies in the Social Sciences (New York: Columbia University Press, 1955). White people who out of the goodness of their hearts decide to volunteer to do charity work for minority communities or 3rd world countries, or even Western organizations who do charity work are accused of being white saviors by the Left. Free Books! The poem acknowledged the thanklessness of a task rewarded with The blame of those ye better, The hate of those ye guard and sentimentalized the savage wars of peace as self-sacrificial crusades undertaken for the greater good. the supposed duty of the One victim of the UK Blair torture regime Fatima Boudchar was actually pregnant when kidnapped along with her husband for rendition. The poem The White Mans Burden was written by Rudyard Kipling partly as an appeal for the United States to intervene in the Philippines and transform the islands into Gambone, Robert L.Life on the Press The Popular Art and Illustrations of GeorgeBenjamin Luks(Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2009). At the same time, however, the suppression of The War Prayer helps highlight the courage and critical edge that many political cartoonists brought to the very same subject of spreading death and destruction in the name of civilization and progress. Pucks caricature of Germanys Bible-quoting Kaiser Wilhelm II ready to machine gun foreign non-believers captures the role of Christianity in turn-of-the-century Western imperialism. Christian missionaries often led the way, followed by politicians, troops, andbringing up the rearbusinessmen. And, After All, the Philippines are Only the Stepping-Stone to China. Emil Flohri,Judge, ca. The war with the Boers (who were ethnically Dutch and Afrikaans-speaking) took place in the South African Republic (Transvaal) and Orange Free State. Global Research The caption reference to harvest surely carried multiple meaning to many ofLifes American readers. Uncle Sam and President McKinley countered the assault under another American flag on which was inscribed Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness under treaty rights. The cartoon caption reflected Americas self-image as a reluctant civilizer: Is This Imperialism? In addition, the U.S. ignored human rights violations in the use of concentration camps. The world view that Rudyard Kipling and other proponents of colonialism believed in was one in which the white man was the guardian and protector of the planet and its people. The Presidents Speech. William Bengough,Life, May 24, 1900. Blocking its uphill path, the Chinese dragon crawls downhill bearing a Boxer waving a bloody sword and banner reading 400 Million Barbarians. The image puts progress and primitivism on a collision course at the edge of a cliff. An iron railing through which an electric current runs is the healthiest and safest of fences. The large Map of the United States and Neighboring Countries is dotted with U.S. flags marking newly-acquired territories. In this 1898 cartoon, Britannia (Great Britain) welcomes Columbia (the United States) as an estranged daughter and new imperialist partner. China peeps over the wall. If you dont do it I shall have to. Udo Keppler,Puck, August 8, 1900. 4). The message suggests that the indigenous man will be brought out of ignorance through the inescapable march of progress in the form of Western civilization. In the eyes of the West, China was dangerously close to chaos as the new century began. (The artist signed his name on the grave on the lower right.). The caption applies the motto united we stand to the Anglo-Saxon brotherhood spreading Western civilization abroad. Progress was promoted as an unassailable value that would bring the worlds barbarians into modern times for their own good and the good of global commerce. Uncle Sam is to be Sacrificed: Anglophobia in Late Nineteenth-Century Politics and Culture., Twain, Mark. Accusations of atrocities against civilians on the ten-day march to Beijing were made in first-hand accounts of the mission. Britain is digesting China, Egypt, Australia, Africa, Canada, and India. Their uniforms are oddly reminiscent of the Revolutionary War that had seen them as bitter adversaries a little more than a century earlier. In these details, the headlight of a modern vehicle (Judge, 1900) and starlight from a goddess of civilization (Puck, 1898) illuminate demeaning caricatures of China. On the contrary, they reflected intense debates about civilization, progress, and the white mans burden that took place on both sides of the Atlantic. 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.