Rudyard Kipling's "The White Man's Burden"

This poem describes the hardships the European colonizers faced. In Kipling's opinion, European colonizers were noble and selfless. He described European colonizers as servants who worked to improve the lives of the immature and savage natives. Kipling said nothing but good things about the colonizers, naming off their good deeds such as feeding the hungry and ending sickness. The latter claim seems a little ridiculous considering the fact that Europeans brought much disease to the Western Hemisphere and gave Native American's blankets with smallpox in them. Kipling described how noble the colonists were when he wrote about how some colonists died while working for the gain of the natives. This poem shows the positive view of colonialism that was instilled into the minds of European citizens throughout the centuries of European colonialism. This view that the leaders of the European Empires instilled is why colonialism was supported and thought highly of by Europeans for a long time. European citizens were only told of the good things the colonists did, and therefore thought highly of them. This belief that the European citizens held was detrimental because it undoubtedly encouraged European colonialism.