8 The Black Man’s Burden (1899)
H. T. Johnson
“The Black Man’s Burden” by H. T. Johnson was originally published in February 23, 1899 issue of The Christian Recorder, of which he was also the editor. A scan of the original newspaper can be accessed in the Gale Primary Sources: Nineteenth Century Collections Online database. The poem is in the public domain.
The editorial notes are available under the CC BY-NC 4.0 license. Unless otherwise attributed, they were written by Dr. Kylee-Anne Hingston at the University of Saskatchewan.
The Black Man’s Burden[1]
Pile on the Black Man’s Burden.
’Tis nearest at your door;
Why heed long-bleeding Cuba, [3]
or dark Hawaii’s[4] shore?
5
Hail ye your fearless armies,
Which menace feeble folks
Who fight with clubs and arrows
and brook your rifle’s smoke.
Pile on the Black Man’s Burden
10
His wail with laughter drown,
You’ve sealed the Red Man’s problem,
And will take up the Brown,[5]
In vain ye seek to end it,
With bullets, blood or death
15
Better by far defend it
With honor’s holy breath.
Pile on the Black Man’s burden,
His back is broad though sore;
What though the weight oppress him,
20
He’s borne the like before.
Your Jim-Crow laws[6] and customs,
And fiendish midnight deed,
Though, winked at by the nation,
Will some day trouble breed.
25
Pile on the Black Man’s burden,
At length ’twill Heaven pierce;
Then on you or your children
Will reign God’s judgments fierce.
Your battleships and armies
30
May weaker ones appall.
But God Almighty’s justice
They’ll not disturb at all.
Works Cited
American Social History Project. “Art, Commentary and Evidence: Analysis of ‘The White Man’s Burden.’” SHEC: Resources for Teachers, 2008, shec.ashp.cuny.edu/items/show/1502. Accessed 10 June 2024.
“‘The Black Man’s Burden’: A Response to Kipling.” History Matters, American Social History Productions, Inc., 2018, historymatters.gmu.edu/d/5476/.
“A Brief History Of The Christian Recorder.” The Christian Recorder, Sept. 2016. www.thechristianrecorder.com/our-leadership/history/.
Hernandez, José M. “Cuba in 1898.” World of 1898: International Perspectives on the Spanish American War, edited by María Daniela Thurber, Library of Congress, 2022, guides.loc.gov/world-of-1898/cuba-overview.
Johnson, H. T. “The Black Man’s Burden.” The Christian Recorder, vol. 46, no. 43, 23 Feb. 1899, p. 1. Gale Primary Sources: Nineteenth Century Collections Online, go.gale.com/ps/navigateToIssue?volume=xlvi&loadFormat=page&issueNumber=43&userGroupName=usaskmain&inPS=true&mCode=8GOV&prodId=NCCO&issueDate=118990223.
Pilgrim, David. “What was Jim Crow?” Jim Crow Museum, Ferris State U, 2012, www.ferris.edu/jimcrow/what.htm.
United States, Department of State, Bureau of Public Affairs. “Annexation of Hawaii, 1898.” Timeline of US Diplomatic History, Department of State Archive, 2001–2009, 2001-2009.state.gov/r/pa/ho/time/gp/17661.htm.
- Several satirical parodies of “The White Man’s Burden” emerged in the initial period after its publication. Appearing in contemporaneous newspapers and periodicals, these parodies ranged from criticisms of a British man giving advice on American affairs to calls for the end of racial oppression (see the American Social History Project’s “Art, Commentary and Evidence: Analysis of ‘The White Man’s Burden’” for links to more responses like Johnson’s). –E.Z. ↵
- A note in History Matters refers to him as “African-American clergyman and editor H. T. Johnson” (“‘The Black Man’s Burden’”). From 1892 to 1909, Johnson was the editor of The Christian Recorder, the official publication of the African Methodist Episcopal Church (“A Brief History”). ↵
- In the nineteenth century, Cuba, a sugar-rich Spanish colony farmed by African slaves until emancipation in 1884, was thoroughly economically intertwined with the United States: “In 1894 nearly 90 percent of Cuba’s exports went to the United States, which in turn provided Cuba with 38 percent of its imports” (Hernandez). Cuba had long been battling Spain for independence, led by a multiracial army, and when a US ship was sunk in the battles between Cuba and Spain, Americans intervened, sparking the American-Spanish War (of which the Phillipines Kipling was writing about was a part). ↵
- As with Cuba, Americans had an increasing economic interest in Hawaii, a “key provisioning spot for American whaling ships, fertile ground for American protestant missionaries, and a new source of sugar cane production” (U.S. Department of State). In 1893, Americans deposed Hawaii’s monarchy under Queen Liliuokalani and by 1898, during the Spanish-American War, annexed Hawaii (Department of State). ↵
- He is referring to Filipinos here. ↵
- As David Pilgrim explains, “Jim Crow was the name of the racial caste system which operated primarily, but not exclusively in southern and border states, between 1877 and the mid-1960s.” ↵
