Twain’s Worl�
Common Core State Standard ELA: Reading Informational Text and Literature (6.1-10 through 12.1-10)
Mark Twain Remembers Slavery
Late in life, Mark Twain reflected back on his childhood in the slave state of Missouri and recorded some
revealing comments about his youth that he wanted to
have published in a posthumous autobiography.
Historic Documents of Cape
Girardeau County
For instance, in Notebook #35, Twain admitted that as
a boy he failed to recognize the “absurdity” of slavery
despite the obvious cruelty of it, explaining:
was on the farm that I got my strong liking for his race and my appreciation of certain of
its fine qualities. This feeling and this estimate have stood the test of sixty years and more
and have suffered no impairment. The black face is as welcome to me now as it was then.
Apparently, Twain did not have any scruples at the time despite his awareness of the “line”
between himself and his slave “comrades” dictated by society because of the differences in
their “color and condition.” Neither did Twain acknowledge any empathy for the circumstances of “Uncle Dan’l,” whom Twain professed to like, but who still had to toil as a slave
for Twain’s real Uncle John.
In those old slave-holding days the whole community
was agreed as to one thing--the awful sacredness of
slave property. To help steal a horse or a cow was a
low crime, but to help a hunted slave, or feed him or
shelter him, or hide him, or comfort him, in his troubles, his terrors, his despair, or hesitate to promptly to betray him to the slave-catcher when opportunity offered was a much
baser crime, & carried with it a stain, a moral smirch which nothing could wipe away… It
seemed natural enough to me then; natural enough that Huck & his father the worthless
loafer should feel it & approve it, though it seems now absurd. It shows that that strange
thing, the conscience--the unerring monitor--can be trained to approve any wild thing you
want it to approve if you begin its education early & stick to it.
His claim of ignorance aside, Twain was also very nostalgic when he recalled his boyhood
relationships with slaves, noting how his familiarity with them nurtured a life-long affection for their company:
Uncle Marion - Wikimedia Commons
It was a heavenly place for a boy, that farm of my
Uncle John’s. . . . All the negroes were friends of
ours, and with those of our own age we were in
effect comrades. I say in effect, using the phrase
as a modification. We were comrades, and yet not
comrades; color and condition interposed a subtle
line which both parties were conscious of, and
which rendered complete fusion impossible. We
had a faithful and affectionate good friend, ally
and adviser in ‘Uncle Dan’l,’ a middle-aged slave
whose head was the best one in the negro quarter, whose sympathies were wide and warm, and
whose heart was honest and simple and knew no
guile. He has served me well, these many, many
years. I have not seen him for more than half a
century, and yet spiritually I have had his welcome company a good part of that time, and
have staged him in books under his own name and as ‘Jim,’ and carted him all around-to Hannibal [Twain’s hometown in Missouri], down the Mississippi on a raft… and he has
endured it all with the patience and friendliness and loyalty which were his birthright. It
There was, however, one small incident of my boyhood days which touched this matter, and it must have meant a good deal to me or it would
not have stayed in my memory, clear and sharp, vivid and
shadowless, all these slow-drifting years. We had a little
slave boy [named Sandy] whom we had hired from someone,
there in Hannibal.
He was from the Eastern Shore of Maryland, and had been
brought away from his family and his friends, half-way
across the American continent, and sold. He was a cheery
spirit, innocent and gentle, and the noisiest creature that
ever was, perhaps. All day long he was singing, whistling,
yelling, whooping, laughing--it was maddening, devastating,
unendurable.
At last, one day, I lost all my temper and went raging to
my mother, and said Sandy had been singing for an hour without a single
break, and I couldn’t stand it, and wouldn’t she please shut him up. The
tears came into her eyes, and her lip trembled, and she said something
like this-“’Poor thing, when he sings, it shows that he is not remembering, and that comforts me;
but when he is still, I am afraid he is thinking, and I cannot bear it. He will never see his
mother again; if he can sing, I must not hinder it, but be thankful for it. If you were older,
you would understand me; then that friendless child’s noise would make you glad.’
“It was a simple speech, and made up of small words, but it went home, and Sandy’s
noise was not a trouble to me anymore. . . .
Perhaps most tellingly, Twain admitted that he could recall at least one occasion when
even as a youth he understood what slavery meant to the millions who endured it:
I vividly remember seeing a dozen black men and women chained to one another, once,
and lying in a group on the pavement, awaiting shipment to the Southern slave market.
Those were the saddest faces I have ever seen.
Word Power
1. Find out the precise meaning of all the words underlined in this reading- can you use
each of them correctly in an original sentence of your own? How does knowing the meaning
of all the words in the reading enhance your understanding and appreciation for what Mark
Twain wrote?
2. Mark Twain described a little black boy named Sandy that he had known as a “cheery
spirit, innocent and gentle, and the noisiest creature that ever was;” in what way did Twain
make this characterization both “poignant” and “ironic?”
Research Question
Slavery in the U.S.
Wikipedia
However, the happy stories of interracial friendship that Twain recounted are belied by a
few painful recollections as well:
1. Read Mark Twain’s 1874 short story titled: “A True Story- Related Word for Word as I
Heard It;” Who was Mary Cord, for whom Twain gave the fictional name “Aunt Rachel” in his
short story?
2. The period following the Civil War is often called “Reconstruction,” which lasted until
1877; based on what was happening in the country during this period, why do you think
Mark Twain published “A True Story?”
3. What brought Reconstruction to an end in 1877, and how did it impact race relations in
this country for the next century?
I mages
Maps and
If you are interested in finding out more
about the museum and its educational
programs, go to www.marktwainhouse.org
1 Using a blank map of the United States before the Civil War, create a key code to show all of the following:
a. Slave states
b. Free states
c. Confederate states
d. Union states
2 Based on your map, why do you think the Civil War in Missouri was particularly vicious?
a map scale, estimate the miles of distance between the Eastern Shore of Maryland and Hannibal,
3 Using
Missouri. How would you feel if your slave master sold you, at the age of six or seven, to live and work
forever in a place that far away from your family?