>>It seems pretty clear to me that Twain was uncomfortable with >>slavery as a young man though he did not quite recognize what >>racism was. The related issues did concern him in his youth. I ran >>across the retyped snippets[below]of his memories of abuses of >>slaves by his otherwise gentle father and others in his very early >>years. The pertinent retyped pages are copied from Chapter 2 >>,Volume 2 PGS 17,18,19 of his book "Following The Equator". I'll >>repeat again this great man never had one drop of racist blood in >>his veins. His countless demonstrations of humanity in so much of >>his work renders me a sceptic of those searching so hard to uncover >>that particular flaw. I'm sure he had some flaws. Even if it is >>discovered by someone that he had a tad of racism lurking somewhere >>in his soul [ which I doubt], it is deeply smothered by his >>overpowering magnanimous spirit. If our nation had leaders of the >>caliber of Twain we would be living in a much better world. Maybe >>the academics, looking for Twains flaws find it a challenge simply >>because of the huge difficulty of finding any thing of >>significance. I believe in research for truth, but their are so >>many fruitful areas to mine for it. There ain't no mother load of >>racism in Twain; I would abandon that mine as a waste of my shovel. >>Bob Brownlee >> >>from pg 17 [ bottom paragraph] FOLLOWING THE EQUATOR-- HARPER AND >>BROTHERS ,The Complete Works of MT > .......... "There was a vast glazed door which opened upon the > balcony. It needed closing, or cleaning, or something, and a native > got down on his knees and went to work at it. He seemed to be doing > well enough, but perhaps he wasn't, for the burly German put on a > look that betrayed satisfaction, then without explaining whay was > wrong, gave the native a brisk cuff on the jaw and then told him > where the defect was. It seemed a shame to do that before us all. > The native took it with meekness, saying nothing, and not showing > in his face or manner any >pg 18 >resentment. I had not seen the like of this for fifty years. It >carried me back to my boyhood, and flashed upon me the forgotten >fact that this was the usual way of explaining one's desires to a >slave. I was able to remember that the method seemed right and >natural to me in those days, I being born to it and unaware that >elsewhere there were other methods; but I was also able to remember >that those unresented cuffings made me sorry for the victim and >ashamed for the punisher. My father was a refined and kindly >gentleman, very grave, rather austere, of rigid probity, a sternly >jusut and upright man, albeit he attended no church and never spoke >of religious matters, and had no part nor lot in the pious joys of >his Presbyterian family, nor ever seemed to suffer from this >deprivation. He laid his hand upon me in punishment only twice in >his life, and then not heavily; once for telling him a lie--which >surprised me, and showed me how unsuspiciou he was, for that was not >my maiden effort. He punished me those two times only, and never >member of the family at all; yet every now and then he cuffed our >harmless slave-boy, Lewis, for trifling little blunders and >awkwardnesses. M father had passed his life among the slaves from >his cradle up, and his cuffings proceeded from the custom of the >time, not from his nature. When I was ten years old I saw a man >fling a lump of iron ore at a slave man in anger, for merely doing >something awkwardly--as if that were a crime. It bounded from the >man's skull, and the man fell and never spoke again. He was dead in an hour. I >PG 19 >knew the man had a right to kill his slave if he wanted to, and yet >it seemed a pitiful thing and somehow wrong, though why wrong I was >not deep enough to explain if I had been asked to do it. Nobody in >the villiage approved of that murder, but of course no one said much about it. >It is curious-- the space-annihilating power of thought. For just >one second, all that goes to make the me in me was a Missourian >village, on the other side of the globe, vividly seeing again these >forgotten pictures of fifty years ago, and wholly conscious of all >things but just those; and in the next second I was back in Bombay, >and that kneeling native's smitten cheek was not done tingling >yet!".............