The N-word at the time of Huck Finn

[Geoffrey Nunberg]

I think Ron’s right that Twain’s contemporary readers would have given
Huck a pass for using the n-word, but it isn’t quite true that
'nigger' was one of the "commonplace terms used by all people, white,
black, enlightened, not enlightened." There’s evidence that many of
the “genteel” Northern whites who constituted a large part of Twain’s
audience considered n-word as “low” or insulting by the time of the
book’s publication in 1884, so that in their ears, Huck’s use of the
word would have underscored the irony of his remorseful repudiation of
racism.

The biographer of the abolitionist Wendell Phillips writes: "A certain
Univrersalist clergyman (whose name it would be cruel to give)
announced from his pulpit a meeting at which [the suffragist] Lucy
Stone was to speak in these words "To-night, at the Town Hall, a hen
will attempt to crow.'' This was wit in 1850, as the word " nigger'
was humanity!" (Wendell Phillips: the Agitator. By Carlos Martyn, c.
1890, p. 237)
 From a recollection (in Making of America) of her maternal
grandfather published in 1906, by a woman whose mother was born in
1811: “My grandfather, whose stern, Puritan face looks down at me from
an old oil portrait in my home, was a Presbyterian of the strictest
sort, more feared than loved by his children. This was before the
abolition of slavery in New York state, and my grandfather owned
several slaves. In this connection I have heard my aunts tell a most
laughable story. My grandfather was much more considerate of the
feelings of his slaves than of those of his children, and the members
of the family were strictly forbidden to use the word "nigger" when
speaking to or of a slave. The expression "colored gentleman" was
sometimes substituted for the obnoxious term. My Aunt Katherine, then
a little maid in her high chair at the table, concluded she wanted
some vinegar. But she didn't want to say "vin-nigger," lest she injure
the feelings of the waiter. So, turning to the ebony hued attendant
behind her she said very politely: "Please hand me the vin-colored-
gentleman.”

Finally, recall the passage from Uncle Tom’s Cabin where George Shelby
arrives too late to save Uncle Tom from his fatal beating by Simon
Legree’s overseers:

“But, sir, this innocent blood shall have justice. I will proclaim
this murder. I will go to the very first magistrate, and expose you."
"Do!" said Legree, snapping his fingers, scornfully. " I'd like to see
you doing it. Where you going to get witnesses? how you going to prove
it? - Come, now!" George saw, at once, the force of this defiance.
There was not a white person on the place; and, in all southern
courts, the testimony of colored blood is nothing. He felt, at that
moment, as if he could have rent the heavens with his heart's
indignant cry for justice; but in vain. "After all, what a fuss, for a
dead nigger!" said Legree. The word was as a spark to a powder
magazine. Prudence was never a cardinal virtue of the Kentucky boy.
George turned, and, with one indignant blow, knocked Legree flat upon
his face; and, as he stood over him, blazing with wrath and defiance,
he would have formed no bad personification of his great namesake
triumphing over the dragon.

George had already had ample provocation for striking Legree, but it’s
notable that Stowe describes “nigger” as the spark that sets him off.
In fact George (who speaks of the “curse of slavery”) never uses the
word, whereas Legree (originally a Northerner) uses it all the time.
Whether or not a sympathetic ante-bellum Kentuckian like George would
actually have refrained from using the word, it’s a fair picture of
how it was regarded by abolitionist New Englanders like Stowe.

Geoff Nunberg


> From: Barbara Need <bhneed at GMAIL.COM>
> Date: March 13, 2009 8:41:13 AM PDT
> Subject: Re:       Re: [ADS-L] The N-word at the time of Huck Finn
>
>
> Ron,
>
> Thanx for this response. I recognize the difficulties inherent in
> responding to a 19th century story with 20th or 21st century
> sensibilities and it is helpful to have it articulated--and some of my
> students did too!
>
> Barbara
>
> Barbara Need
> Chicago
>
> On 12 Mar 2009, at 10:25 AM, RonButters at AOL.COM wrote:
>
>> It seems to me that the question raised here is impossible to answer
>> because=
>> =20
>> it is premised on a late-twentieth-century view of race that simply
>> did not=20
>> exist in 19th-century America. The prevailing LIBERAL attitude was
>> patronizi=
>> ng=20
>> at best, and there was hardly a white person alive before 1950 who
>> did not h=
>> old=20
>> views of African-Americans that would not be viewed as racist today.
>> By=20
>> contemporary standards, Lincoln was a racist.
>>
>> There were no terms for black people that were not intrinsically
>> patronizing=
>> =20
>> at best. This is the attitude of Twain in HUCK FINN, though it is
>> a=20
>> benevolent, thoughtful attitude which does recognize Jim's intrinsic
>> worth a=
>> s a human=20
>> being--a kind of romantic rustic who is able to think outside the
>> box of=20
>> prevailing wisdom precisely because he is an outsider. When Twain
>> calls him=20=
>> "Nigger=20
>> Jim" he is simply using one of the commonplace terms used by all
>> people, whi=
>> te,=20
>> black, enlightened, not enlightened. His respect for the Jims of
>> this world=20
>> is clear. Given the prevailing attitudes towards black people at the
>> time--e=
>> ven=20
>> scientists--"nigger," "darky," etc. were just the terms that people
>> used.=20
>> There WERE no "racist" epithets, because the modern idea of racism
>> had not e=
>> ven=20
>> been invented yet, nor could be until people began to see that the
>> prevailin=
>> g=20
>> attitudes of the day towards race were wicked and evil--and until
>> others=20
>> resisted such new, enlightened attitudesl, which is what gives
>> racial slurs=20=
>> their=20
>> real meaning.
>
> Original question follows:
>
>>>>> At 3/11/2009 09:40 PM, Barbara Need wrote:
>>>>>> I am grading papers about racism in _Huck FInn_ and several
>>>>>> students
>>>>>> have said something implying that _nigger_ was offensive at
>>>>>> either
>>>>>> the
>>>>>> time the book is set or the time Twain was writing (or both). I
>>>>>> have
>>>>>> not found anything very useful in the archives. Do we know how
>>>>>> offensive the word was in the 19th century?

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