Excellent review.  Many thanks for posting.  Twain's back-and-forth on
Indians is indicative of so much in his writing.  It's tough to discern in
his statements what stems from conviction and what is a matter of mood at
the moment.  When it comes to Native Americans, I think we need to conclude
that he was virulently biased.  - Kay

On Mon, Oct 1, 2018 at 9:51 AM Martin Zehr <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

> Just finished Kevin's excellent review- what else is new?- of Kerry
> Driscoll's book on Twain's conflicting attitudes toward the American
> Indian.  A topic well-deserving the attention of a scholar like Dr.
> Driscoll.  Don't know if she mentioned this, but years ago Tom Quirk
> pointed out to me that, in his late work, Extracts from Captain
> Stormfield's Visit to Heaven, the guard at the entrance to Heaven is a
> "Pai-Ute" Indian.   What gives?
> Martin Zehr
>
> On Mon, Oct 1, 2018, 5:48 AM Barbara Schmidt <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
> > The following review was written for the Mark Twain Forum by Kevin Mac
> > Donnell.
> > ~~~~~
> >
> > _Mark Twain among the Indians and Other Indigenous Peoples_. By Kerry
> > Driscoll. University of California Press, 2018. Pp. 448. Hardcover
> $95.00.
> > ISBN 9780520279421 (hardcover). ISBN 9780520970663 (ebook).
> >
> >
> > Many books reviewed on the Mark Twain Forum are available at discounted
> > prices from the Twain Web Bookstore. Purchases from this site generate
> > commissions that benefit the Mark Twain Project. Please visit <
> > http://www.twainweb.net>
> >
> > Reviewed for the Mark Twain Forum by:
> > Kevin Mac Donnell
> >
> >  Copyright (c) 2018 Mark Twain Forum. This review may not be published or
> > redistributed in any medium without permission.
> >
> >
> > An irksome puzzle has persisted through more than a century of Mark Twain
> > scholarship. It has usually been avoided altogether, or at best it has
> been
> > briefly touched upon by a handful of scholars. In her ground-breaking new
> > study, Kerry Driscoll spells it out clearly: "While Twain's view on
> blacks
> > . . . [demonstrate] unequivocal growth away from the racism of his
> origins
> > in the antebellum South, his representations of Indians do not follow a
> > similarly redemptive arc. They are instead vexingly erratic and
> > paradoxical, commingling antipathy and sympathy, fascination and visceral
> > repugnance" (4). Driscoll credits scholars who have dealt briefly with
> > Twain's attitude toward America's indigenous people--Ned Blackhawk, Louis
> > J. Budd, Joseph Coulombe, Leslie Fiedler, Philip Foner, Max Geismer,
> Harold
> > J. Kolb, and Jeffrey Steinbrink--and points out that they tend to fall
> into
> > two camps that either idealize or vilify Native Americans. Both camps
> > distort Twain's own views by over-simplifying the issue. The truth is
> more
> > complicated, and a book length study to explore these complications is
> long
> > overdue.
> >
> >
> > Driscoll's book is that much needed and long overdue study, and well
> worth
> > the wait! "Mark Twain did not care for Indians. This book is an attempt
> to
> > understand why" says Driscoll (3). Driscoll describes her approach as
> > "chronological and geographical" (7) and she documents when and where
> Twain
> > met Indians, when and where he read about them, when and where he heard
> > about them, and when and where he wrote or spoke about them. She lays out
> > her evidence like a prosecutor, challenges her own evidence, and in doing
> > so avoids the overgeneralizations that have plagued previous brief
> studies
> > that have touched on this topic. At one point the CIA looms large in her
> > narrative, but more about that later. She also refutes the conventional
> > notion that Twain's animosity toward Indians was fiercest when he was out
> > west and that it steadily modulated during his Hartford years. His views
> > modulated at times, but his antagonism often erupted in later years, and
> at
> > best settled into an antipathy toward Indians.
> >
> >
> > Driscoll makes clear that she does not intend to "defend or defame"
> Twain,
> > and reminds us that "his intellectual journey--sprawling, untidy,
> > incomplete--matters more than where he ultimately arrived" (13). It is an
> > amazing journey, and if Driscoll's account of it at times seems
> sprawling,
> > untidy, or incomplete, it is only a reflection of Mark Twain himself,
> whose
> > genius as a storyteller and brilliancy in capturing the voice of America
> is
> > justly celebrated, but whose failure to grasp the humanity of Native
> > Americans is a flaw that cannot be ignored.
> >
> >
> > The journey begins in Sam Clemens's early years when he likely heard his
> > mother Jane Clemens recite the story of her own grandmother's survival of
> > the "Montgomery Massacre" in Kentucky in 1781, in which her father and
> four
> > other family members were killed, along with some neighbors in nearby
> > cabins, and some of her playmates captured. Although some accounts of
> that
> > first attack are contradictory, it is clear that after Jane Clemens's
> > grandmother married, she and her husband survived three more Indian
> attacks
> > on the Kentucky frontier and she displayed clear symptoms of PTSD. Jane
> > Clemens exerted enormous influence on young Sam, and Jane did not like
> > Indians. Despite his family heritage, sixteen year old Sam romanticized
> > Indians on par with James Fenimore Cooper when he wrote an account of
> > Hannibal that he published in 1852, calling them "children of the forest"
> > who once gave "the wild war-whoop" where Hannibal now stood, but were now
> > "scattered abroad . . . far from the homes of their childhood and the
> > graves of their fathers" (14). Likewise, Sam's brother Orion expressed
> > sympathy for the displaced Indians of the region just a few years later
> > when he penned an essay about Keokuk for the town's first directory which
> > he printed while Sam was in his employ.
> >
> >
> > But the brothers' attitude toward Indians did not remain in sync. During
> > their years in Nevada, Orion continued to express sympathy for the local
> > Indians, while Sam's view evolved in the opposite direction. With the
> > exception of a single letter, he viewed the local Indians as violent,
> > ignorant, lazy, untrustworthy, and filthy "savages"--describing them with
> > contempt, amusement, and sometimes pity (72-73). Orion would retain his
> > sympathy for Indians for the rest of his life, but not even the
> charitable
> > views of Sam's friend William Wright (Dan De Quille) could soften Sam's
> > bias. Twain could even distinguish cultural differences between the local
> > tribes while sustaining his prejudices toward all of them. As Driscoll
> > observes at one point, Sam Clemens "sees, in other words, but does not
> > comprehend" (74).
> >
> >
> > After adopting his _nom de plume_ and leaving Nevada, Mark Twain retained
> > his contempt for Indians, and in 1870 published "The Noble Red Man,"
> > described by Driscoll as "the hateful crescendo of a racial bias rooted
> in
> > the tales of frontier violence his mother had told him as a child" (144).
> > In this piece, Twain authoritatively invokes his experiences with Indians
> > in Nevada and declares that "all history and honest observation will show
> > that the Red Man is a skulking coward and a windy braggart . . . [whose]
> > heart is a cesspool of falsehood, of treachery, and of low and devilish
> > instincts" and concludes that Indians are "a good, fair, desirable
> subject
> > for extermination if ever there was one" (149). Twainians will be shocked
> > and disappointed to know that in 2004 this essay was posted at
> > Stormfront.org, the largest white nationalist website in the world, where
> > it was praised.
> >
> >
> > In _Roughing It_, although Twain does not advocate genocide, he describes
> > one tribe as "a thin, scattering race of almost naked black children . .
> .
> > who produce nothing at all, and have no villages, and no gatherings
> > together into strictly defined tribal communities" making clear that
> their
> > extinction will be of no consequence (136). The kindest thing that can be
> > said about Twain's attitude expressed in _Roughing It_ is that he failed
> to
> > see Indians as victims of colonialism, instead criticizing them for
> > subsisting like parasites at the fringes of white settlements, the only
> > adaptive behavior possible for them in response to violent displacement.
> >
> >
> > Earlier in her study Driscoll discusses Injun Joe, reviews Victor
> Fischer's
> > debunking of Hannibal's Joe Douglas as the model for Injun Joe, and
> > explores the implications of "playing Indian" in _The Adventures of Tom
> > Sawyer_, but she does not mention the Mountain Meadow Massacre (cited in
> > _Roughing It_), in which Mormons disguised as Indians murdered an entire
> > wagon train of settlers and kidnapped the very youngest children. She
> also
> > discusses James Fenimore Cooper's ridiculous Indians and points out that
> > Twain lampooned Alexander Pope's Indians a few years before he got around
> > to blasting Cooper's. Twain's attacks on Cooper began in 1869 and
> > culminated in his famous essay on Cooper's "literary offenses" in 1895.
> But
> > Twain was full of contradictions: He derided Cooper's praise of the
> > tracking abilities of Indians, yet he was in awe of the tracking
> abilities
> > of Aborigines in _Following the Equator_ just two years later.
> >
> >
> > During Twain's Hartford years he encountered the CIA (the Connecticut
> > Indian Association, of course; what were you expecting?) and his
> > reaction--or rather non-reaction--to this active group is revealing. This
> > group felt the best way to solve "the Indian Problem" was to Americanize
> > them through detribalization, education, and Christianization. They and
> > other groups endorsed an idea that was best summed up in a speech by the
> > founder of an Indian boarding school: "Kill the Indian--save the man"
> > (228). To modern ears such a group sounds misguided and paternalistic,
> but
> > by contemporary standards they represented a progressive movement intent
> on
> > helping Native Americans. Twain's next door neighbor, Harriet Beecher
> > Stowe, was a big supporter (when she wasn't sneaking up behind Twain and
> > cutting loose with a "war-whoop" as he once reported). But for some
> reason
> > Twain and his wife Livy had almost nothing to do with the group despite
> the
> > enthusiasm of their neighbors. Twain attended a benefit lecture for the
> > group by Chauncey Depew, but that may have been a personal gesture or an
> > indication of Twain's interest in the subject matter. Twain once gave $10
> > to a cause that was also championed by the CIA, but otherwise he is oddly
> > absent from the events associated with this advocacy group, prompting
> > Driscoll to title her chapter "The Curious Tale of the Connecticut Indian
> > Association."
> >
> >
> > "Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer among the Indians" is discussed at length.
> > Although never finished, it provides clues to Twain's often ambivalent
> > attitude toward Indians. One reason given for Twain's failure to finish
> > this story is that he could not come up with a plot device to get around
> > the fact that the kidnapped girl was almost certainly raped by her Indian
> > captors, a topic he did not wish to inject into his fiction. Driscoll
> > traces Twain's familiarity with this subject back to his days in
> California
> > and presents a common source for both this unfinished story and "The
> > Californian's Tale." She carefully reviews Twain's annotations in books
> by
> > Francis Parkman and Richard Irving Dodge, and presents a lively account
> of
> > Twain's writing of this aborted tale.
> >
> >
> > At times Twain's views toward Indians softened, and Driscoll cites
> numerous
> > instances. Among them are the influence of Joaquin Miller's _Life amongst
> > the Modocs_, (Twain even nicknamed his fifteen month-old daughter Susy
> > "Modoc" because of her hairstyle), his observations and encounters with
> > indigenous people during his lecture tour around the world, how his own
> > financial setbacks and geographic displacement made him more sympathetic
> to
> > Aborigines and others impoverished and displaced under colonial rule, his
> > endorsement of Indian music, and his comparison of the Christian God to
> the
> > superior Gods of the Indians. But none of these redemptive moments seemed
> > to endure. In _Following the Equator_, Twain wrote "There are many
> humorous
> > things in the world; among them the white man's notion that he is less
> > savage than the other savages" (_FE_, 213). Driscoll points out that he
> > recognized the humanity of indigenes people abroad but seemed unable to
> > transfer that understanding to those at home.
> >
> >
> > At home Twain could see the humanity in black people, but not Indians.
> > Driscoll points out that he had grown up in the presence of slaves
> without
> > ever questioning their humanity, but that his formative impressions of
> > Indians came second-hand from newspapers, books, and grotesque family
> > stories. She quotes from Twain's 1897 notebook: "Education consists
> mainly
> > in what we have unlearned" (349) and demonstrates how Twain was unable to
> > unlearn much of what he'd been taught about Indians, despite having
> moments
> > of insight in the presence of other indigenous people. She pairs two
> quotes
> > from the beginning and end of his career that show how his jaundiced view
> > of western Indians as lustful savages remained essentially unchanged. He
> > could denounce imperialism abroad while mostly ignoring it at home,
> making
> > no public statements, for example, even when his daughter Jean wrote an
> > impassioned letter to the _New York Times_ protesting the mistreatment of
> > Indians in 1909.
> >
> >
> > Driscoll admits that Twain's "erratic and deeply conflicted views" of
> > American Indians "defy easy explanation" (369), and concludes that
> "Indians
> > remained an enigma for him--objects of pity, loathing, and confused
> > fascination--until the end" (370). Readers of this book will be
> disturbed,
> > provoked, and disheartened, but not disappointed. They will find the
> > excellent illustrations, bibliography, and index subentries extremely
> > helpful and suggestive of further readings and research. But honest
> > scholarly enquiry often leads to more questions than answers, and if
> there
> > are unanswered questions at the end of Driscoll's superb enquiry, it is
> not
> > the fault of the enquirer, but Mark Twain himself, who left us no clear
> > answers on this subject--not because he knew the answers and chose to
> > withhold them, but because he simply did not know himself.
> >
>