Unnamed Slaves of Sutpen 1

As the proprietor of the largest plantation in Yoknapatawpha, Sutpen owned a much larger group of slaves than his original twenty slaves from the Caribbean and the additional several slaves whom the narrator specifically refers to. Absalom! notes, for example, that over the years the "wild" Negroes whom Sutpen "had brought into the country" mix with other enslaved Negroes - "the tame which was already there" (67). This larger group, however, remains almost entirely invisible in the novel, although the text does note that all of them self-emancipate themselves by "deserting" to "follow the Yankee troops away" (67).