Dear Mr. Twain,

            I read your text Pudd’nhead Wilson and have qualms with the way you define whiteness in it. As an active nineteenth-century Anglo-Saxon American citizen and reader of The Independent, I stumbled upon Charles W. Chestnutt’s article, “What is a White Man?” I am a man from South Carolina, and I subscribe to Chestnutt’s account of South Carolinian Supreme Court law: “ …But it is in all cases a question for the jury, to be determined by them upon the evidence of features and complexion afforded by inspection, the evidence of reputation as to parentage, and the evidence of the rank and station in society occupied by the party" (3). Nothing in life is purely mathematics. One must take into account a man’s social status, reputation, complexion, features. A mere mathematical breakdown of race does not allow for complexities (such as complexion).

Your character Roxy does recognize that clothing can really change a person’s identity, as she does the initial child swap when Tom and Chambers are merely infants (15). But the court and jury in Dawson’s landing fail to see that a man who grows up as “white” is culturally white because hitherto that is all he has known and has been perceived and raised to be. Because of the one-thirty-secondth of him that are not white, in the eyes of their law he is no longer afforded a white man’s rights. (Of course, this does not excuse his murderous deed.)

Indeed, you could argue that you are not exactly in defiance to what Chestnutt reports about the South Carolina Supreme Court. And your story take place in Missouri, so what do you care? But for argument’s sake, let us forget those details for the moment. You may argue that once Roxy reveals to Tom that he is her son, he begins to consciously live in the world as a man passing as white (48). This shifts his attitude outwardly as he copes with what he believes is the most horrible thing in the world that he wished he was dead. He begins to act in compliance to societal norms of forced deference unto white slave owners and paranoia and shame set in. So, in this way, you may argue that by this proof of parentage of a slave ancestor is enough for the SCSC to deny him as a white man. But alas, because men who have one-eighth or less of “African blood” are considered white, and Tom is one-thirty-secondth African.   

The court continues, "The question whether persons are colored or white, where color or feature are doubtful, is for the jury to decide by reputation, by reception into society, and by their exercise of the privileges of the white man, as well as by admixture of blood" (3). So, despite his ancestral lineage, Tom appeared to be white with no distinguishable characteristics to suggest otherwise, and his identity should not have come into question.

But if you were to play devil’s advocate and changed some of his features to be apparent to some, my argument would still hold strong. When “color or feature” is too ambiguous for a jury to unanimously agree on, the jury would look to his reputation and exercise of white privilege to glean an answer. Up until his “real” identity was exposed, Tom still exercised the rights afforded to white men without suspicion and maintained his reputation as a white man in Dawson’s Landing society. So, if this story had taken place in South Carolina with adherence to our law, we would not have sold a fellow white man into slavery “down the river.”

            On another note, what frustrates me is you explain little about Chambers, the “real heir” to the Driscoll (crumbling) fortune and what becomes of him after the revelation. He seems to be generous to Roxy, who switched him at birth into a life of slavery, even after learning the truth, but you say nothing of how receptive society is of him in light of this exposure by Pudd’nhead Wilson.

Leonard,

A loyal subscriber of  The Independent