Having long been a student of the West in American History, Twain’s account was realistic of what he observed. While there is tremendous variation in the Indians of the Americas, several broad generalizations hold true:
1) East of the Mississippi, the northern and southern tribes had in prehistory engaged in a horrific war, so that by the time of the European arrival, what is today the East-West and North-South crossroads of the region, much of the state of what is now Kentucky, was a “neutral zone” to both sides. The occupation of this neutral zone was the *only* way westward expansion could happen, as both sides were otherwise too powerful and aggressive.
Eventually, Andrew Jackson engaged in ethnic cleansing to permanently remove this threat of the “five civilized tribes” to West of the Mississippi.
2) The powerful tribes of the Plains Indians held lands far greater than their numbers, yet even by the time of the Civil War still represented a major threat, as did the tribes of the southwest. Capable armies in opposition to westward expansion, that took the US Army many years to subdue.
3) Finally, scattered around the periphery of the major tribes were many minor tribes, such as Twain described, who lived in almost perpetual starvation.
Importantly, the context for Twain was the hopeless romanticism of “The Noble Savage” that filled the eastern and even European press. It neither saw the power, might and aggression of the warrior tribes, nor the abject poverty of many of the lesser tribes. It did not distinguish the “red man” of the northeast “civilized” tribes and the almost black in color, near stone age primitive tribes that lead hand to mouth lives.
But what Twain wrote was an effort to dispel these illusions.
Apparently the only Indian he ever observed was one alcoholic hang-about-the-fort. He paints all Indians with that broad brush and only an uninformed idiot would consider it realistic. Try reading some Allan W. Eckert.
Do you have any good sources you could recommend that would illustrate some of these points?