Hi Camy, I'm not sure I understand your questions. Do you mean to refer in whole to the institution of slavery as a form of mistreatment, or do you refer specifically to Twain's subjective assessment in L on the Miss that he never saw a slave in Hannibal treated badly? We tend to look back in time through the social and contextual lenses of our own individual present day values and beliefs. In Twain's role as a social cynosure I think over his lifetime he became quite outspoken against the institution of slavery as well as, for example, the imperialism of the emerging world power that was the USA in the late 19th century. He seemed to truly regret what happened to slaves in America, the Filipinos after the Spanish-American War, as well as the Congolese under Belgian colonial rule. Obviously a lot of people during these years could not have cared less about these issues and their affected peoples. It must have taken some courage to be Twain. Steve Crawford Jyväskylä, Finland