Question

Which lines from this stanza suggest that many Europeans believed that the native cultures of their colonies were inferior?

“Take up the White Man’s burden–
Send forth the best ye breed”
“Go bind your sons to exile
To serve your captives’ need”
“To wait in heavy harness,
On fluttered folk and wild”
“Your new-caught, sullen peoples,
Half-devil and half-child”

Answer 1

The most telling lines are:

- “Your new-caught, sullen peoples, / Half-devil and half-child” — explicitly dehumanizes and infantilizes colonized people, calling them partly evil and partly childlike.
- “To wait in heavy harness, / On fluttered folk and wild” — portrays them as uncivilized, unruly and needing control/discipline.
- “To serve your captives’ need” — frames colonized peoples as captives whose needs must be managed by Europeans.

Together these lines express the common European view of colonized cultures as inferior, childlike, and in need of guidance or rule.