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Definition 2024


white_man's_burden

white man's burden

English

Noun

white man's burden

  1. The supposed responsibility of European people to govern and care for their colonial subjects
    • 1915 October 6, Lewis Ransome Freeman, “Germany's Exit From Africa”, in The World's Work, volume XXX:
      Germany's appearance as a colonizing power in Africa was greeted in no unfriendly spirit by either France or Great Britain. Each of the latter felt that it was already possessed of about all it could comfortably look after, and both realized that another shoulder under "The White Man's Burden" in the Dark Continent might make the load easier for all.

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