Calvin Burden I
Text:
Character Key:
Display Name:
Calvin Burden I
Sort Name:
Burden, Calvin I
Race:
White
Gender:
Male
Class:
Lower Class
Rank:
Secondary
Vitality:
Dies
First Mentioned:
Date of Birth:
Wednesday, January 1, 1812 to Thursday, December 31, 1812
Origin:
New England
Cause of Death:
Murder
Biography:
Tenth child of a Unitarian minister in New England, Calvin I hopes to teach his children "'to hate two things . . . hell and slaveholders'" (243). He loses one of his arms fighting against slavery as "a member of a troop of partisan guerilla horse" in 1861 (244). Then, during Reconstruction, he moves with his son to Yoknapatawpha with the goal of advocating for the rights of freedmen. There he is killed by Colonel John Sartoris, an event Faulkner had previously described in Flags in the Dust (and would describe again in The Unvanquished). As Joanna Burden's grandfather, he bequeaths to her the enduring enmity of Jefferson townspeople.
Note:
Keywords: slavery, abolition, Civil War, Kansas-Missouri Border War, racial violence, family history
Disability:
amputee
Individual or Group:
Individual
Character changes class in this text:
digyok:node/character/4244