And it is worth noting that the Norton Critical Edition of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer includes the essay by Carter Revard, "Why Mark Twain Murdered Injun Joe: And Will Never Be Indicted," which asks the same question you do. (First published in the Massachusetts Review 40, no. 4 (1999-2000): 643-670). But I have a student working on this topic, and she convinces me that there is a fair amount of scholarship out there to draw upon. Randall On Thu, Apr 21, 2011 at 8:48 PM, Scott Holmes <[log in to unmask]>wrote: > I've been working my way through Roughing It (again) recently, doing > public readings. It caused me pause when I reached his description of > the Goshoots Indians. It's quite common for discussion of Twain to > center on assumed racism because of his use of a particular word but > rarely have I seen any discussion of his prejudice against native > Americans - Indians. When it does come up it is generally in regard to > Injun Joe. Injun Joe is an entirely different matter, he is for the > most part a product of the dominant culture, the "white" culture. The > Goshoots are part of an entirely foreign culture to Twain and he seems > unable to understand it or even recognize that it is a foreign culture. > > Roughing It comes from very early in Twains career so I'm wondering if, > after all his world travels, he ever came to see native Americans in a > better light. > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------- > There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of > in your philosophy. > http://bscottholmes.com > ------------------------------------------------------------------------- >