Sartoris Plantation Other Slave Cabin (Location Key)

A second slave cabin on the Sartoris plantation is mentioned in 4 of the Unvanquished stories. It is referred to several times as "the other cabin" ("Skirmish at Sartoris," 62, 192), but even though no other cabins are ever mentioned, there must have been many other cabins in the quarters, given the size and wealth of the plantation. This other cabin is originally occupied by Loosh and his wife Philadelphy. It is probably not far from the one lived in by Joby and Louvinia (Loosh's father and mother) - unless you measure the distance politically. In "My Grandmother Millard," written after the other stories in this series but set earlier in the Civil War, Bayard mentions the "something" that happened to Loosh and the "it" that he talks about "more than once, in the cabin" (669). "It" is his freedom, which puts him at odds with his parents, who remain intensely loyal to the white family that owns them. When the Union army does pass through Sartoris in "Retreat," Loosh makes Philadelphy go with him in its wake - self-emancipating as many slaves do in other Yoknapatawpha fictions. Behind them the Yankees leave the Sartoris big house in ashes, so over the course of the later stories Loosh's cabin is inhabited, first, by his parents - who are there because members of the white family that still claims to own them have moved into their cabin; then by Joby and Ringo and Colonel John Sartoris and Bayard - the white males are there because the ladies of Jefferson object to them sleeping in a cabin with Drusilla ("Skirmish at Sartoris"). For that time being, this cabin is one of the most integrated spaces in Yoknapatawpha - though Bayard's narrative does not mention where Louvinia sleeps during this period.