Honest, non-rhetorical question: is there an example where Mark Twain told a story that his audience presumed to be true and was invented to garner sympathy?
GPT-4 Can you tell what chapter Mark Twains "Roughing It" where he describes some sad Native-Americans?
The chapter you're referring to is Chapter 26. In this chapter, Twain describes an encounter with a group of Native Americans near the Humboldt River. He paints a rather bleak picture of their condition, noting their ragged appearance, their desolate surroundings, and the overall sense of hopelessness. Twain's description is both sympathetic and critical, as he comments on the impact of Western expansion on Native American communities.
It's an answer to this question
Or, worse, invented to garner sympathy by piling on demonization onto another group. These are not victimless crimes.