I have been reading Dixon Wecter's biographical study of Twain's early
years, "Sam Clemens of Hannibal" in which he describes some of Twain's
ancestors as being Indian fighters, and relates the story of how
Twain's great-great grandmother ended a massacre of her family by
Indians with some quick thinking. We have to recognize that
particularly for those of Twain's ancestors who helped to carve the
land away from the natives, conflict was frequent. I believe that
Twain's attitudes toward native Americans was initially formed by
these family tales, and he never recovered from it and perhaps later
events in his own life reaffirmed his early beliefs. It always
surprised me that Twain was so outspoken against the abuse of, for
example, Chinese people in California or later the Filipinos, but
never seemed to identify or empathize with native Americans.

Steve Crawford
Jyväskylä, Finland