Mark Twain never owned slaves. John Quarles, Mark’s uncle, owned 20 slaves.
Whenever Mark spent summers at his uncle’s home he witnessed slavery
first-hand. He saw a slave owner murder a slave in his hometown of Hannibal.
The man killed the slave with a rock for ” merely doing something awkward.
In a 1853 letter, Mark Twain wrote: “I reckon I had better black my face, for
in these Eastern states, n***s are considerably better than white people.”