The title "The White Man's Burden" should come as no great surprise. After all, it's a part of the poem's central refrain, which gets repeated at the start of every single stanza. In essence, the title announces the poem's central thesis: it's up to white men to go out there and tackle the tough, thankless job (hence "burden") of showing native people the "proper" way to live their lives. Yeah, we got a bad taste in our mouth just typing that sentence.