Editing Mark Twain (section)

====Native Americans====
Twain's earlier writings on [[Native Americans in the United States|American Indians]] reflected his view of essentialized [[Race (human categorization)|racial]] difference. Twain wrote in "The Noble Red Man" in 1870: {{blockquote|His heart is a cesspool of falsehood, of treachery, and of low and devilish instincts. With him, gratitude is an unknown emotion; and when one does him a kindness, it is safest to keep the face toward him, lest the reward be an arrow in the back. To accept of a favor from him is to assume a debt which you can never repay to his satisfaction, though you bankrupt yourself trying. The scum of the earth!<ref name=indian_hater>{{cite web | url = http://www.bluecorncomics.com/twain.htm | title = Mark Twain, Indian Hater | access-date = 2008-07-09 | date = May 28, 2001 | publisher = Blue Corn Comics | archive-date = September 15, 2008 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20080915133043/http://www.bluecorncomics.com/twain.htm | url-status = live }}</ref>}} In the same tract, Twain advocates genocide, describing the "Noble Aborigine" as :  "nothing but a poor filthy, naked scurvy vagabond, whom to exterminate were a charity to the Creator's worthier insects and reptiles which he oppresses"<ref>Mark Twain, "[https://www.jrbooksonline.com/PDFs/twain-noble-red-man-facsimile.pdf The Noble Red Man] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240506193428/https://www.jrbooksonline.com/PDFs/twain-noble-red-man-facsimile.pdf |date=May 6, 2024 }}", 1870</ref>  This piece sought to undermine the sympathy felt on the "Atlantic seabord" for Native Americans.<ref>{{cite journal |last=Clark |first=Beverly Lyon |title=Mark Twain among the Indians and Other Indigenous People by Kerry Driscoll (review) |journal=Great Plains Quarterly |url=https://muse.jhu.edu/article/747066 |volume=40 |issue=1 |date=2020 |doi=10.1353/gpq.2020.0004 |access-date=April 21, 2024 |archive-date=May 17, 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220517203954/https://muse.jhu.edu/article/747066 |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |last=Harris |first=Helen L. |title=Mark Twain's Response to the Native American |volume=46 |issue=4 |date=1975 |pages=495–505 |journal=American Literature |publisher=Duke University Press |doi=10.2307/2924574 |jstor=2924574 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/2924574.pdf |access-date=April 21, 2024 |archive-date=March 25, 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200325182410/https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/2924574.pdf |url-status=live }}</ref>  In 1895, Twain was still ridiculing the author of ''[[Last of the Mohicans]],'' saying in "[[Fenimore Cooper's Literary Offenses]]" that Cooper "[...] was almost always in error about his Indians. There was seldom a sane one among them."<ref>{{cite web |author=Mark Twain |website=Mark Twain in his Times |url=https://twain.lib.virginia.edu/projects/rissetto/offense.html |title=Fenimore Cooper's Literary Offenses |date=1895 |access-date=April 21, 2024 |archive-date=April 21, 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240421173045/https://twain.lib.virginia.edu/projects/rissetto/offense.html |url-status=live }}</ref>