Charles Dickens on The Noble Savage

In Charles Dickens on "Esquimaux," I noted that Dickens had a negative impression of Arctic Natives. Someone on Facebook recently noted that Dickens wrote a more extensive piece on indigenous people. Here's an excerpt:

The Noble SavageTO come to the point at once, I beg to say that I have not the least belief in the Noble Savage. I consider him a prodigious nuisance, and an enormous superstition. His calling rum fire-water, and me a pale face, wholly fail to reconcile me to him. I don't care what he calls me. I call him a savage, and I call a savage a something highly desirable to be civilised off the face of the earth. I think a mere gent (which I take to be the lowest form of civilisation) better than a howling, whistling, clucking, stamping, jumping, tearing savage. It is all one to me, whether he sticks a fish-bone through his visage, or bits of trees through the lobes of his ears, or bird's feathers in his head; whether he flattens his hair between two boards, or spreads his nose over the breadth of his face, or drags his lower lip down by great weights, or blackens his teeth, or knocks them out, or paints one cheek red and the other blue, or tattoos himself, or oils himself, or rubs his body with fat, or crimps it with knives. Yielding to whichsoever of these agreeable eccentricities, he is a savage - cruel, false, thievish, murderous; addicted more or less to grease, entrails, and beastly customs; a wild animal with the questionable gift of boasting; a conceited, tiresome, bloodthirsty, monotonous humbug.

Yet it is extraordinary to observe how some people will talk about him, as they talk about the good old times; how they will regret his disappearance, in the course of this world's development, from such and such lands where his absence is a blessed relief and an indispensable preparation for the sowing of the very first seeds of any influence that can exalt humanity; how, even with the evidence of himself before them, they will either be determined to believe, or will suffer themselves to be persuaded into believing, that he is something which their five senses tell them he is not.

There was Mr. Catlin, some few years ago, with his Ojibbeway Indians. Mr. Catlin was an energetic, earnest man, who had lived among more tribes of Indians than I need reckon up here, and who had written a picturesque and glowing book about them. With his party of Indians squatting and spitting on the table before him, or dancing their miserable jigs after their own dreary manner, he called, in all good faith, upon his civilised audience to take notice of their symmetry and grace, their perfect limbs, and the exquisite expression of their pantomime; and his civilised audience, in all good faith, complied and admired. Whereas, as mere animals, they were wretched creatures, very low in the scale and very poorly formed; and as men and women possessing any power of truthful dramatic expression by means of action, they were no better than the chorus at an Italian Opera in England--and would have been worse if such a thing were possible.

Mine are no new views of the noble savage. The greatest writers on natural history found him out long ago. BUFFON knew what he was, and showed why he is the sulky tyrant that he is to his women, and how it happens (Heaven be praised!) that his race is spare in numbers. For evidence of the quality of his moral nature, pass himself for a moment and refer to his 'faithful dog.' Has he ever improved a dog, or attached a dog, since his nobility first ran wild in woods, and was brought down (at a very long shot) by POPE? Or does the animal that is the friend of man, always degenerate in his low society?

It is not the miserable nature of the noble savage that is the new thing; it is the whimpering over him with maudlin admiration, and the affecting to regret him, and the drawing of any comparison of advantage between the blemishes of civilisation and the tenor of his swinish life. There may have been a change now and then in those diseased absurdities, but there is none in him.Dickens's conclusion:To conclude as I began. My position is, that if we have anything to learn from the Noble Savage, it is what to avoid. His virtues are a fable; his happiness is a delusion; his nobility, nonsense.

We have no greater justification for being cruel to the miserable object, than for being cruel to a WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE or an ISAAC NEWTON; but he passes away before an immeasurably better and higher power than ever ran wild in any earthly woods, and the world will be all the better when his place knows him no more.Comment:  Wow. Dickens was about as bigoted as his contemporary Mark Twain--another great writer whose work was marred by racism. Now we can say with greater confidence that Dickens's prejudice against Jews, as shown in the character Fagin, was no exception.

True, Dickens didn't want to harm indigenous people himself. But like L. Frank Baum, he basically wished them dead. Nice.

Like many Euro-Americans, his intent was genocidal. Presumably he wouldn't have lifted a finger to stop the people's destruction if he learned about it. This is why the Holocaust and other acts of genocide happen--because the powers that be letting them happen.

For more on Twain, see "Book Indians" in Huck and Tom and Scholar:  Huck and Twain Were Racist.

Nelson's approach in Huck and Tom

In previous postings I described Mark Twain's unfinished novel Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer Among the Indians. I discussed how Twain contrasted noble "book Indians" with savage real Indians.

Recently, author Lee Nelson completed the novel based on his knowledge of the American West. Not surprisingly, he gave the Indians more depth than Twain's one-dimensional portrayal. Let's take a look.

[**spoiler alert**]

Nelson begins where Twain left off: with the heroic Brace Johnson surveying the Sioux camp where the Indians hold his sweetheart Peggy Mills, her sister Flaxy, and ex-slave Jim. Enraged by Peggy's defilement, Johnson launches a suicidal one-man attack on the Indians. He kills one or two but they quickly overpower and cripple him, then kill and mutilate him.

Johnson's fate seems horrific, but mutilating him after he's dead obviously doesn't hurt him. More to the point, the Indians didn't necessarily know who was attacking them. If they knew Johnson, they didn't necessarily know why he was attacking them. When a crazed enemy launches an unprovoked attack, you can be forgiven for reacting in kind.

Huck to the rescue

With Brace dead and Tom gone to fetch help, it's up to Huck to save Peggy, Flaxy, and Jim. He observes the camp at length. Here's where Nelson starts drawing a clear distinction.

For starters, the Anglo girls fall into the rhythm of camp life> They perform chores just like Indian girls. Other than the initial "defilement," which is only alluded to, the Sioux treat the girls like members of the tribe.

Also, Huck is careful to blame the Mills family massacre and Peggy's defilement on Blue Fox and his men. You know, the actual Indians who committed the crimes, not the whole tribe or all Indians. This is a testament to Huck's essential fairness--the same quality that led him to help Jim flee slavery. And to author Nelson's essential fairness in making Huck's choice for him. Unlike Twain, Nelson doesn't seem prejudiced against the entire race of Indians.

As for Jim, the Sioux initially leash him to a pole and assign him to scrape hides. But soon an Indian brings him a drink and unties him. Jim continues his scraping voluntarily. He's eventually joined by an Indian woman ("squaw") who seems to like him.

When Huck finally reaches Jim, Jim says he doesn't want to leave. The Indians have treated him like an equal, and the woman obviously thinks he's a full-fledged man. Unlike white men, the Indians don't consider him inferior because of his skin color.

Nelson is showing us the propensity of Indian tribes to convert runaways and captives into members without prejudice. Tribes made political and cultural distinctions, of course, but they didn't make racial ones. In general, they weren't prejudiced the way Europeans were.

The rest of the book

Before Huck can do anything, the Sioux sell the girls to two unsavory trappers. Nelson doesn't shy away from noting that some tribes sold women and children to other tribes, Mexicans, or the occasional white man. But they're relatively kind as slave masters go. They don't strip Peggy, whip her, or chain her. When she insists that Flaxy must go with her, they agree.

Huck spends the rest of the novel pursuing Peggy, rescuing her from the trappers, and getting her to safety. Along the way he meets an Indian with amputated legs who hobbles around on the stumps and depends on charity to survive. He encounters a tribe where a runaway slave has become chief--again showing the Indian willingness to treat all races as equals. Jim eventually returns to this tribe and becomes its co-chief. And a tribe of peaceful Indians (Goshutes?) who farm and dress in Western clothes. When Huck gives them some of his food, he and Peggy become their honored guests.

There are no more depredations by "evil" Indians. Huck worries that he or his friends may run into dangerous Indians, but it never happens. Basically, all the savagery happens in Twain's part of the book and none in Nelson's.

Nelson's portrait of Indians is balanced. Like anyone else, Indians are capable of killing or enslaving people, but also of helping and honoring them. In contrast, Twain's portrait is pure racism. To him, Indians are treacherous, murdering scum with no redeeming qualities.

Rob's review

Some critics didn't like the Twain/Nelson collaboration, saying Nelson failed to match Twain's high standards. I think Nelson made Huck's travels more varied and interesting than Twain would've done. The ending is especially fitting, as Huck--the boy without prejudice against blacks, Indians, or "defiled" women--gets a well-deserved reward.

Huck and Tom is a cross between a rollicking boys' adventure and an Old West travelogue. Sure, it has flaws, but it's worth reading. Rob's rating: 8.0 of 10.

For more on the subject, see Why Not Rewrite Twain's Books? and New Huck Finn Eliminates "Injun."

"Book Indians" in Huck and Tom

When people discuss Twain's Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer Among the Indians, they tend to note two things. One that Twain satirized James Fenimore Cooper's romantic view of Indians. And two, that Twain inexplicably stopped writing the novel in mid-sentence.

My view is that these two things aren't unrelated facts. Rather, they're inextricably linked. Twain didn't have a whole novel in mind, he had a one-note joke at Cooper's expense. He wanted everyone to know his racist views so he put them in the form of a Huck and Tom story. Once he told the joke, he lost interest in the project. Spoofing Cooper was the whole point of it.

Here's a brief recap of Twain's unfinished novel:

[**spoiler alert**]

Tom says he wants to go west and have an adventure among the Indians. Jim is afraid, saying the Indians will "skin" them. Tom launches into a lengthy defense of Indians, extolling their courage, morality, and nobility.

It's the kind of praise you'd see in a "politically correct," feel-good guide to Indians. Or in George Catlin's Creed about Indians. Except Catlin the painter actually visited 48 tribes in the 1830s and knew them from personal experience, unlike Twain.

Anyway, Tom convinces Huck and Jim to head west. They join the Mills family: two parents, three boys, and two girls in one wagon. On the plains the travelers meet Blue Fox and four other Sioux Indians. They camp together for four days.

The Indians are friendly, hospitable, and charming. They talk, hunt, dance, and play games with the travelers. On the fourth day, they inexplicably turn into evildoers. They viciously slaughter the Mills parents and boys and mutilate their bodies. They take the girls and Jim captive; only Huck and Tom escape.

Why'd they do it?

Brace Johnson, the heroic sweetheart of the captured Peggy Mills, arrives to save the day. Johnson ponders the Indians' inexplicable behavior:"It's the puzzlingest thing!­ There's features about it that I can't seem to make head nor tail of, no way. I can understand why they fooled around here three or four days, because there warn't no hurry; they knowed they had from here to Oregon to do the job in, and besides, an Injun is patient; he'd rather wait a month till he can make sure of his game without any risk to his own skin than attempt it sooner where there's the least risk. I can understand why they planned a buffalo hunt that would separate all the whites from each other and make the mastering of them easy and certain, because five warriors, nor yet fifteen, won't tackle five men and two boys, even by surprise when they're asleep at dawn, when there's a safer way."Really? Seems to me I've read several accounts of Indians attacking larger forces by surprise. From what I recall, a reckless disregard of danger was much more of an Indian trait than an Anglo one.

More to the point, I've read many accounts of massacres. I've never heard anything like this one. Yes, sometimes Indians and white men met to parlay or trade and one side or the other violated the truce and massacred the other. But after four days of putting on a perfect show of being friendly? I don't think so. I'm guessing no such massacre ever occurred--that Twain made it up in his own bigoted imagination.

Did five adult Indians really have to worry about one old man, three boys who had barely reached manhood, an ex-slave without fighting skills, and a few women and children? I'd say they had the advantage already.

They could've surprised and killed the travelers at any time. Waiting four days didn't guarantee that everything would go right. Rather, it offered numerous chances for something to go wrong. Massacring the travelers at the first good opportunity would've been the smart thing to do.

In short, Twain's scenario doesn't make sense. It doesn't match any Indian behavior I ever heard of. It existed solely so Twain could paint his racist picture of Indians as devils.

Book Indians aren't real Indians?

Finally, Huck gives us Twain's punchlines:"Tom, where did you learn about Injuns...­how noble they was, and all that?"

He give me a look that showed me I had hit him hard, very hard, and so I wished I hadn't said the words. He turned away his head, and after about a minute he said "Cooper's novels," and didn't say anything more, and I didn't say anything more, and so that changed the subject.And:I noticed, but I never said anything, that Tom was putting the Injuns below the devils, now. You see, he had about got it through his noodle, by this time, that book Indians and real Injuns is different."Book Indians" like Cooper's Uncas are brave and noble. Real Indians are savage beasts, murderous animals, according to Twain. There you have his racist views in nutshell.

Even the choice of language confirms Twain's views. In a book they're called "Indians." In reality they're filthy "Injuns." "Indians" is too good a word for them.

Eight and half paragraphs after telling us book Indians aren't real Indians, Twain stopped writing. He'd made his point; he had nothing left to say. He didn't want to share more adventures of Huck and Tom, he wanted to "massacre" the reputation of Indians. Once he got that out of his system, he gave up.

For more on the subject, see Why Not Rewrite Twain's Books? and New Huck Finn Eliminates "Injun."

Below:  A Twain-style view of Indians.

Huck and Tom Among the Indians

Here's a sequel to Mark Twain's famous Adventures of Huckleberry Finn:

Huck and Tom Among the IndiansMark Twain most likely wrote Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer among the Indians during the summer of 1884. It featured the same targets as Twain's works such as the The Noble Red Man and Fenimore Cooper's Literary Offenses highlighted: James Fenimore Cooper's alleged idealization of American Indians.

Huck and Tom Among the Indians takes place on the Oregon Trail from western Missouri, along the Platte river, ending in Sioux territory near Fort Laramie. This is the same route that Twain himself took in 1861 on the way to Nevada, and from which he developed the travel book Roughing It (Blair 84). Walter Blair, the editor of Mark Twain's Hannibal, Huck & Tom observed that several of the events in the short story correspond with those that occurred in Clemens' personal life.

While definitely not his best work, and in some respects an utter failure, Huck and Tom Among the Indians reveals intriguing things about Twain's view of American Indians. The devious nature of the Indians who double-cross and then massacre the loving Mills family, and Peggy's implied brutal rape, eliminate any possibility of a positive racial relationship between whites and American Indians. The story's plot dwindles until it reaches stagnancy; perhaps this is the reason that Twain could not finish the text.Western author Lee Nelson completed the unfinished novel in 2003:

Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer Among the Indians--Brief Article--Audiobook Review

By Janet Julian GraftonIn 1968 Life magazine published an unfinished novel by Twain titled Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer Among the Indians. Twain had inexplicably ended the story on page 62. Nelson, author of a dozen or so historical novels set in the West in the 1800s, finishes the job Twain began.

Twain's story begins with Huck, Tom, and the ex-slave Jim heading for Indian country because Tom convinced them that Indians were the splendidest creatures on God's earth. The difference between book Indians and real ones soon becomes apparent. The adventurers join a party of pioneers named Mills who are waiting at the Platte River for Peggy Mills' fiance, Brace Johnson. They are joined by a group of Oglala Sioux warriors who murder the Mills and their three sons and kidnap Peggy and her younger sister Flaxie. Brace, the two adventurous boys, and Jim trail the girls. Just as they are about to sneak into the Indian camp for the rescue, Twain drops the tale in the middle of a sentence.

Nelson takes up the pen and the rest of the story is filled with adventure, violent weather, an Army sergeant who rapes young boys, and Huck's growing love for Peggy Mills. Huck narrates as usual, but he's growing up so his naivete is accompanied by unexpected native wit and survival skills. It's an exciting story with the unbeatable narration of Gardner, who gets Huck's twang just right. Gardner handles the dialects with aplomb. Anyone would travel west with this Huck Finn, a brave, decent boy who grows into a generous, caring man.Comment:  You can read Twain's actual text here:

Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer among the Indians

I excerpted portions of it for my Mark Twain, Indian Hater posting. Yes, it reveals "intriguing things about Twain's view of American Indians"--particularly the fact that Twain was a racist.

For more on the subject, see Why Not Rewrite Twain's Books? and New Huck Finn Eliminates "Injun."

Why not rewrite Twain's books?

Apparently the biggest objection to Mark Twain's Huckleberry Finn and Tom Sawyer is that black children are horrified and traumatized when they read the n-word. I haven't heard of white children being traumatized by this word, and it didn't traumatize me when I read Huck Finn in high school. Nor have I heard of black or white children being traumatized by the words "Injun" and "half-breed."

This suggests a better solution than simply sanitizing the books of every objectionable ethnic slur in them. The publisher could develop a black edition without the words offensive to blacks and an Indian edition without the words offensive to Indians. If the books have any words offensive to whites, a white edition could exclude them.

This is a silly solution, but it points to the silliness of the proposed solution. One silly solution deserves another.

Slurs out but racism remains

The real problem isn't that Huckleberry Finn and Tom Sawyer are great books except for the ethnic slurs. Rather, they're steeped in the racism of the era. If the publisher really wanted to address this problem, it would rewrite all the racist passages. Eliminate Jim's phony dialect and superstitious ignorance and Injun Joe's murderous savagery, among other things.

This is why critics have said replacing the slurs is a slippery slope. Where do you stop if you're really trying to protect the children? Why is it wrong to expose them to racist words but not to racist ideas?

Schools have a few ways to deal with Huckleberry Finn and Tom Sawyer. The options include 1) teach kids to deal with the ugly truths in them, or 2) don't teach them until kids are mature enough to handle them. Either option seems better than using sanitized books.

For more on the subject, see Mark Twain, Indian Hater and Is Huck Finn Racist?

New Tom Sawyer eliminates "Injun" too

When people were talking about censoring Huckleberry Finn last week, I didn't realize they were planning to do the same to Tom Sawyer:

Upcoming NewSouth 'Huck Finn' Eliminates the 'N' Word

By Marc SchultzRather than see Twain's most important work succumb to that fate, Twain scholar Alan Gribben and NewSouth Books plan to release a version of Huckleberry Finn, in a single volume with The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, that does away with the "n" word (as well as the "in" word, "Injun") by replacing it with the word "slave."

"This is not an effort to render Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn colorblind," said Gribben, speaking from his office at Auburn University at Montgomery, where he's spent most of the past 20 years heading the English department. "Race matters in these books. It's a matter of how you express that in the 21st century."Educator Debbie Reese examines the problems in Tom Sawyer:

An American Indian perspective on changing "Injun" to "Indian" in TOM SAWYERSummary: The first Indian that Twain introduces readers to is an unnamed figure in Tom's imagination. This takes place in chapter eight on page 74. Tom has been rebuffed by the girl he's sweet on (Becky) and runs off to the woods. There, Tom thinks about running away to "join the Indians" where he'll "hunt buffaloes and go on the warpath in the mountain ranges and the trackless great plains of the Far West." When he returns, he'll be with "a great Indian chief, bristling with feathers, hideous with paint." He'll go into Sunday-school "with a blood-curdling war-whoop."

Deb's comments: Tom's image reflects America's love/hate attitude towards American Indians. On one hand, we're admired and on the other, we're feared. Or--I should say--IMAGES of us are admired and feared. Tom wants to join Indians who (he imagines) are living the good life out west, hunting buffaloes. He is drawn to the warlike image, too, as he images going on the warpath with the Indians of his imagination. Tom dwells more on the aggressive warlike image of Indians in feathers and paint who utter sounds that terrorize courageous Christians and settlers.In the next chapter, Injun Joe is helping a doctor and his assistant dig up a body in a graveyard. Injun Joe tells the doctor he has a score to settle because: "The Injun blood ain't in me for nothing." The "half-breed" Indian circles the doctor--"creeping, catlike and stooping"--before stabbing him.Deb's comments: As developed by Twain, "Injun Joe" is a vengeful, lying murderer who moves like a cat. In framing "Injun Joe" as animal-like, Twain is not alone. Authors then and now do it. A recent example is seen in James Crowley's Blackfeet characters who gnaw on bones.

And, he's a half-breed whose Indian blood/identity is the reason he's a vengeful, lying murderer.(Excerpted from Debbie Reese's American Indians in Children's Literature, 1/10/11.)

Comment:  Reese goes through the whole book analyzing it in the same vein. She concludes that changing "Injun" to "Indian" and "half-breed" to "half-blood" won't make much difference. Injun Joe is still a one-dimensional savage killer regardless of the words used. The book doesn't belong in any curriculum except to study racism in literature.

For more on the subject, see New Huck Finn Eliminates "Injun" and Is Huck Finn Racist?

New Huck Finn eliminates "Injun"

New edition of 'Huckleberry Finn' to lose the 'n' word

By Keith StaskiewiczWhat is a word worth? According to Publishers Weekly, NewSouth Books’ upcoming edition of Mark Twain’s seminal novel Adventures of Huckleberry Finn will remove all instances of the “n” word—I’ll give you a hint, it’s not nonesuch—present in the text and replace it with slave. The new book will also remove usage of the word Injun. The effort is spearheaded by Twain expert Alan Gribben, who says his PC-ified version is not an attempt to neuter the classic but rather to update it. “Race matters in these books,” Gribben told PW. “It’s a matter of how you express that in the 21st century.”

Unsurprisingly, there are already those who are yelling “Censorship!” as well as others with thesauruses yelling “Bowdlerization!” and “Comstockery!” Their position is understandable: Twain’s book has been one of the most often misunderstood novels of all time, continuously being accused of perpetuating the prejudiced attitudes it is criticizing, and it’s a little disheartening to see a cave-in to those who would ban a book simply because it requires context. On the other hand, if this puts the book into the hands of kids who would not otherwise be allowed to read it due to forces beyond their control (overprotective parents and the school boards they frighten), then maybe we shouldn’t be so quick to judge. It’s unfortunate, but is it really any more catastrophic than a TBS-friendly re-edit of The Godfather, you down-and-dirty melon farmer? The original product is changed for the benefit of those who, for one reason or another, are not mature enough to handle it, but as long as it doesn’t affect the original, is there a problem?'Huck Finn' navigating choppy waters

By Martha T. Moore"When the younger reader is staring at that word five times on a given page and the instructor is saying, 'Mark Twain didn't mean this and you have to read it with an appreciation of irony,' you're asking a lot of a younger reader," Gribben says.

Readers will still be able to understand Twain's message without the blare of the offensive word drowning out the book's themes, Gribben says. "All I'm doing is taking out a tripwire and leaving everything else intact. All his sharp social critique, all his satirical jabs are intact. This novel cannot be made colorblind."

The book has been criticized for its language and characterizations since it was first published in 1885, says Barbara Jones of the American Library Association, which tracks how often books are banned from libraries. Huckleberry Finn was among the top five books challenged or banned during the 1990s.

Author Toni Morrison once wrote of the "fear and alarm" and "muffled rage" she felt during her first readings of it.

"Yeah, it's a tough book," says Millie Davis of the National Council for English Teachers. "Which is an excellent reason for teaching it."

Word is used 'for a reason'

Gribben's upcoming version of Huckleberry Finn, first reported in Publisher's Weekly, has educators and scholars readying the tar and feathers.

Twain once described the difference between the almost-right word and the right word as the difference between the lightning bug and the lightning. "Slave," Twain scholars say, is a firefly.

Twain could have used other derogatory words of the period, such as "darky," but chose not to, they say.

"The word is there for a reason," says Jeff Nichols, the executive director of the Mark Twain House and Museum in Hartford, Conn. "The word is terrible, it's hurtful, but it's there for a reason," to convey the language and attitudes of Missouri in the 1840s, in a book written in the 1880s when Jim Crow laws were being passed in the South to deprive blacks of their civil rights.

The new edition will also change "Injun Joe" to "Indian Joe" and "half-breed" to "half-blood."

"This is what's called a slippery slope," says Robert Hirst, editor of the Mark Twain Papers at the University of California-Berkeley. He says Huckleberry Finn is best taught in college, rather than high school.A collection of links on the subject:

Voices:  The Huckleberry Finn Controversy

The final word:

Leave 'Huck' alone

Excising the 'N-word' does a disservice to students, since the language is very much part of the story and the history.Gribben has a point when he says that many modern school districts and teachers are reluctant to put "Huck Finn" on the curriculum because of its liberal use of the offensive word. His goal is to broaden the book's readership and acceptability by rendering it inoffensive. "Huck Finn" is No. 4 on the list of most-banned books in American schools, according to author Herbert N. Foerstal, and that's a shame, but attempting to sanitize it isn't the answer. Intelligent and sensitive discussion with students would be a better response.

Twain's masterwork is a moving reflection of attitudes in the pre-Civil War South (and of its author's postwar sensibilities, which were ahead of their time with regard to race but behind our own). It's the struggle of a white youth, Huck, to reconcile his recognition of the humanity and equality of an escaped slave with the views of a society that considers him little better than an animal and uses epithets to describe him. The language, then, is very much part of the story and the history. Trying to protect students from the full ugliness of racism by softening that language does a disservice to them, and it's all too easy to imagine the crimes against literature that would result if this kind of thing caught on. We hope nobody gives Gribben a copy of Shakespeare's "Merchant of Venice," because the Bard's attitude toward Shylock the Jew was distastefully Elizabethan.Comment:  Of course, Huck Finn has many problems besides the n-word. It's questionable whether it deserves to be called a masterpiece or taught at all. I'd say it definitely should be held until high school if not college.

For more on Huckleberry Finn, see Scholar:  Huck and Twain Were Racist and Is Huck Finn Racist? For more on "Injun," see Steele's Hypocrisy on Racial Slights and Twain Invented "Honest Injun"?

Scholar: Huck and Twain were racist

Commercialism sold Huck Finn character down the river, Twain scholar says

The retired chairman of UCLA's English Department has a collection of tchotchkes, gadgets and artwork that show how the 1884 classic has been romanticized by fans, the public and even the author.

By Bob PoolA close reading of the book shows that the supposedly warm relationship between Huck and Jim has been manipulated over the last century, he said.

"Jim was an encumbrance for Huck. There's been a great deal of romanticizing about the bond that the two of them form on the voyage down the river. But Huck never realizes slavery is wrong."

Was Huckleberry Finn a racist?

"Yes," Wortham said. And so was Mark Twain.

Twain used the "N-word" 206 times, according to Wortham. "Each time that word is used is calculated" by Twain for its shock value for an audience that at the time was unaccustomed to literature written in the vernacular, he said.Comment:  Actually, it doesn't take that close of a reading. I read Huck Finn in high school. Twenty years later, I remembered it well enough to successfully argue it's racist.

The use of the n-word is just the tip of the iceberg. The best arguments for Huck Finn's being racist are Jim's ignorance and superstitiousness. Being unschooled isn't the same as being dumb, but Jim is as foolish as a child. And Jim's over-the-top Negro dialect. He talks like every minstrel clown in history, not a real person.

By the way, rafting downriver to the South, where slavery is more pervasive, is a pretty damn stupid mistake. For Jim the character and for Twain the writer. I wonder why Twain wrote it that way, and why critics haven't pounced on this blatant mistake. What next...a Jew fleeing Nazis who hides in Auschwitz?

For more on the subject, see Is Huck Finn Racist? and Mark Twain, Indian Hater.

Below:  Childlike blacks and savage Indians were Twain's youthful view of minorities.

"Help me, massa! I sho nuff is so ignorant I can't speak no good!"

Dick Gregory champions Mark Twain

We get e-mail:Hi Rob,

Regarding the discussion on your site of Mark Twain being "racist"--I think Dick Gregory's explanation is brilliant:** The part where he talks about Twain begins near the 103:00 minute marker (lasts about 2 mins). Dick is listing the top three people responsible for ending slavery in America before Lincoln (Twain, Stowe, John Brown).My reply:  I think Gregory's response is somewhat addled, which is why he hesitated for so long before coming up with it.

The key point is that Huck Finn was published in 1884, or long after Lincoln and the Civil War. So Gregory is flatly wrong in saying Twain's book had an effect before Lincoln.

The only benefits Gregory attributed to Huck Finn were calling Jim by name and having him talking with Huck as an equal. That might've been a bit innovative in the mid-19th century South, when slavery was the law of the land. But 20 years after slavery was abolished, when blacks were supposedly equal?

Here are some African-American firsts that happened contemporaneously with Huck Finn's mid-century timeframe:

1836: First African American elected to public office and to serve in a state legislature: Alexander Twilight, Vermont.

1837: First African-American doctor: Dr. James McCune Smith from the University of Glasgow, Scotland.

1845: First African American licensed to practice law in the United States: Macon Allen from the Boston bar.

1847: First African American to graduate from a U.S. medical school: Dr. David J. Peck (Rush Medical College).

1849: First African-American college professor: Charles L. Reason, New York Central College.

1853: First novel written by an African American: Clotel; or, The President's Daughter, by William Wells Brown.

If Twain had written about the first black lawyer, doctor, or professor, that might've been impressive. Even 30 or 40 years after the fact, as Huck Finn was. But the first slave to be called by a proper name? Let's ask Twain's intellectual contemporaries--Frederick Douglass, Booker T. Washington, and W.E.B Du Bois--how much Huck Finn contributed to their freedom.

In short, the book's fictional "advances" were trivial compared to the historic advances in the real world. Twain did nothing extraordinary by pointing out the evils of slavery 20 years after the fact.

Nice try to defend Twain's racism, friend, but I suggest you try again. Better luck next time.

For more on the subject, see Mark Twain, Indian Hater.

P.S. For all I know, Twain was the first writer to give an Indian a Christian name ("Injun Joe" in Tom Sawyer). And the first to portray an urban Indian--one completely divorced from his tribal upbringing. Should we give him credit even though Injun Joe was a violent criminal? No, I don't think so.

Twain invented "Honest Injun"?

I checked the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) about the claim that Mark Twain invented the word "Injun." Not true. The first recorded use of "Injun" was by someone named J. Cocke in an August 1812 issue of the Salem Gazette.

But Twain's Tom Sawyer (1876) is the first recorded use of the phrase "Honest Injun." Someone named Talcott had written the words "Honest Indians" a couple of centuries earlier, but only in their literal sense. Twain may have been the first to use "Honest Injun" as an exclamation meaning, "No, really. I'm not kidding!"

Of course, being the first citation in the OED doesn't prove Twain invented the phrase. Twain may have seen or heard it somewhere the OED couldn't document. But Twain certainly gets credit for making the phrase popular.

For more on "Injun," see Calling BS on Steele's "Injun" and "Injun" as Bad as N-Word? For more on Mark Twain, see Mark Twain, Indian Hater.

Twain invented "Injun"?

Michael Steele, "Honest Injun," and, "Injun" in children's booksSteele says his use of the phrase was not intended as a racial slur. I imagine a lot of people were surprised to learn that "injun" is derogatory.

Surprised, because, it is, after all, quite common. You can find "Injun" and "Honest Injun" in older books that are widely read today, like:

The Adventures of Tom Sawyer--published in 1876, where "evil is embodied in the treacherous figure of Injun Joe" (pg. x of the intro to The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, a Signet Classic book published in 2002), and in the oath used several times by characters.

Seems to me, in my cursory study of the phrase, that it may have been coined by Twain. In the entry on "Injun," the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) lists Twain as the first person to use "Injun." It also lists several other noted writers who used "Honest Injun." Some are George Bernard Shaw in 1896 and James Joyce (in Ulysses) in 1922.(Excerpted from Debbie Reese's American Indians in Children's Literature, 1/12/10.)

Comment:  I find it hard to believe that no one used "Injun" before Mark Twain in 1876. But I have no evidence that this claim is wrong.

For more on Steele, see Calling BS on Steele's "Injun" and Steele's Hypocrisy on Racial Slurs. For more on Twain, see Is Huck Finn Racist? and Mark Twain, Indian Hater.

Below:  Injun Joe.