Unnamed Chickasaw Chief

Sam Fathers' father is referred to twice in "The Bear," first as a "Chickasaw chief" (282) and later as an "Indian king" (294). In this version of the story, nothing more is said of him, though in Go Down, Moses (1942), his identity is revealed as Ikkemotubbe, also known as "Doom," from the French Du Homme, "The Man." In Go Down, Moses, Sam's mother is a slave woman impregnated by Ikkemotubbe and is then married to a slave man, which explains Sam's surname, which in Chickasaw is "Had-Two-Fathers." The magazine version of "The Old People" goes into more about Sam's origins, but in that story, Ikkemotubbe is referred to as Sam's grandfather.