Sickymo

Sickymo was a U.S. marshal in Jefferson during Reconstruction, a period in which more than 2,000 African-Americans - many of them, like Sickymo, former slaves - held public office. Because he is illiterate, he "signs his official papers with a crude cross" (277).When still a slave, he stole alcohol, diluted it, and stored it in a sycamore tree in order to sell it - hence his name. His character and tenure in office are referred to in Go Down, Moses as an instance of the evils that befell the defeated (white) South after the loss of the Civil War.