Content note: Racial caricatures of colonised peoples carried in baskets. This object is shown as it was published. Why
"The White Man's Burden (Apologies to Rudyard Kipling)" (Judge, 1899)
Uncle Sam and John Bull carry racially caricatured figures labelled the new colonial subjects up a hill marked civilization, borrowing the prestige of Kipling's 1899 poem to cast annexation as a burden willingly shouldered rather than a war being fought.
A cartoon in Judge magazine, dated 1 April 1899 and signed Victor Gillam, published for the domestic public during the Philippine-American War under the McKinley administration. Uncle Sam and John Bull carry racially caricatured figures labelled with colonies and territories up a hill toward 'Civilization', with words such as 'Cannibalism' and 'Barbarism' printed on the figures below. Transfer applies because the title borrows the standing of Kipling's poem, and glittering generalities because 'civilization', 'education' and 'liberty' stand in for any account of the war itself.
Propaganda techniques used in this cartoon
- Date
- April 1, 1899
- Period
- Pre-1914
- Made by
- Judge magazine
Full record
Region, Country, Medium, Issuer type, Regime, Leader, Audience, Purpose, Themes, Event, Source, Rights
- Region
- North America
- Country
- United States
- Medium
- Cartoon
- Issuer type
- Media
- Regime
- Mckinley Administration
- Leader
- William Mckinley
- Audience
- Domestic public
- Purpose
- Persuade or win support
- Themes
- Empire and colonialism, Race and ethnicity
- Event
- Philippine American War
- Source
- Identified Openly sourced: the speaker is who they say they are
- Source
- Wikimedia Commons, retrieved September 27, 2026
- Rights
- Public domain (published in the U.S. in 1899)
Victor Gillam, "The White Man's Burden (Apologies to Rudyard Kipling)", Judge, 1 April 1899
Text on the object
Original (English) · read from the image, not independently checked
Judge CIVILIZATION EDUCATION LIBERTY ZULU INDIA CHINA HAWAII CUBA PORTO RICO CORRUPTION VICE CRUELTY IGNORANCE CANNIBALISM SLAVERY BRUTALITY SUPERSTITION VICE IGNORANCE OPPRESSION BARBARISM "THE WHITE MAN'S BURDEN." (Apologies to Rudyard Kipling.) Victor Gillam Sackett & Wilhelms Litho. & Ptg. Co., New York
Rock and basket-passenger labels are scattered across the composition; grouped by type rather than left-to-right, since the object has no single reading order. 'PORTO RICO' and the bottom-right printer's credit are tiny, low-contrast script read with only moderate confidence. The basket figures are racist caricatures of the people of these countries/territories, shown as printed per the no-sanitising rule; two further ribbon labels (one per basket) are illegible cursive script too small to read.
