You have to understand and accept that these people were writing for their time - a very different one to our own. There are still people in the world today who believe that a person from another country - hell, even another town - than their own is inferior, stupid, prone to breeding with its cousins out of wedlock, a target for insults and a butt for all jokes, but the majority of us know that this is not the case. However, in the time of Poe, Clemens et al, it was the norm. Take them from that time and drop them into ours, and they would be as horrified of our acceptance of all peoples, as we are of their inherent racism and behaviours.

The only way we could determine the truth without speculation, is to have a conversation with the man himself. As this is blatantly not possible without a ouija board, divine intervention or a TARDIS, then we can never know for certain.

LTS