Mark Twain and Slavery

5fish

Well-Known Member
Joined
Jul 28, 2019
Messages
10,626
Reaction score
4,544
An article on Mark Twain and slavery...

Link: https://www.thoughtco.com/mark-twain-write-about-slavery-740681

Snip...

Mark Twain was a product of Missouri, a slave state. His father was a judge, but he also traded in slaves at times. His uncle, John Quarles, owned 20 slaves, so Twain witnessed the practice of slavery firsthand whenever he spent summers at his uncle's place. Growing up in Hannibal, Missouri, Twain witnessed a slave owner brutally murder a slave for "merely doing something awkward." The owner had thrown a rock at the slave with such force that it killed him.

Snip...

It is possible to trace the evolution of Twain's thoughts on slavery in his writing, ranging from a pre-Civil War letter that reads somewhat racist to postwar utterances that reveal his clear opposition to slavery and his revulsion of slaveholders. His more telling statements on the subject are listed here in chronological order

In a letter written in 1853, Twain wrote: "I reckon I had better black my face, for in these Eastern states, n----rs are considerably better than white people."

Snip...

Nearly two decades later, Twain wrote to his good friend, novelist, literary critic, and playwright William Dean Howells about Roughing It (1872): "I am as uplifted and reassured by it as a mother who has given birth to a white baby when she was awfully afraid it was going to be a mulatto."

Snip...

In his essay The Lowest Animal (1896), Twain wrote:
"Man is the only Slave. And he is the only animal who enslaves. He has always been a slave in one form or another and has always held other slaves in bondage under him in one way or another. In our day, he is always some man's slave for wages and does that man's work, and this slave has other slaves under him for minor wages, and they do his work. The higher animals are the only ones who exclusively do their own work and provide their own living."

Snip...

Then in 1904, Twain wrote in his notebook: "The skin of every human being contains a slave."

The link has other but it obivous he is beginning to think we are all slaves , wage slaves...
 

O' Be Joyful

ohio hillbilly
Joined
May 12, 2019
Messages
3,491
Reaction score
3,136
Mark Twain was born on November 30, 1835—two weeks after the perihelion of Halley’s Comet. “I came in with Halley’s Comet,” Mark Twain commented in 1909. “It is coming again next year. The Almighty has said, no doubt, ‘Now there are these two unaccountable freaks; they came in together, they must go out together.’” He died on April 21, 1910—one day after the comet had once again reached its perihelion.

https://www.laphamsquarterly.org/future/miscellany/mark-twain-again-follows-halleys-comet
 

5fish

Well-Known Member
Joined
Jul 28, 2019
Messages
10,626
Reaction score
4,544
Mark Twain maybe not a fan of American Indians...

Here is a link about Mark Twain's about American Indians

LINK: http://www.twainweb.net/reviews/MTAmongIndians.html

Link: https://marktwainstudies.com/tag/american-indians/

In his 1899 essay “Concerning the Jews,” Twain states: I am quite sure that (bar one) I have no race prejudices, and I think I have no color prejudices nor caste prejudices nor creed prejudices. Indeed, I know it. I can stand any society. All that I care to know is that a man is a human being—that is enough for me; he can’t be any worse.” Although the writer refused to name the one bias he admits to harboring, abundant evidence in his work suggests that the allusion is to Native Americans, whom he referred to in print as “reptiles, “vermin,” and “good, fair, desirable subject for extermination.” This presentation explores the origin and evolution of Twain’s attitudes toward indigenous peoples and probes the reasons underlying his animus.
 
Last edited:
Top