Keywords

To index passages in which slaves are described taking a stand of some kind, usually verbal, against their enslavement. The clearest instances of this involve Loosh and Granny on the Sartoris plantation. (More direct physical forms of resistance are indexed under "Fugitive" and "Revolt.") SR

For passages that depict or refer to any elements of the system by which slaves were policed or punished, like the "Patrollers" who patrolled roads after dark to prevent slaves from leaving plantations. SR

Used to mark the passages where the representation of a slave or group of slaves draws on the representational conventions of blackface minstrelsy, where slaves were depicted as comically inferior to whites. The scene in "Retreat" where Ringo "hollers and moans and hollers again" for "Marse John" and "Bayard and Colonel and Marse John and Granny" is an instance of this. SR

The clearest example of this occurs in "Raid," when Granny tells the slaves she has recovered from the Union Army to go "home," to their former masters, and they seem to obey her. SR

For passages that include specific numbers about the people or places involved, as when Bayard says that before the War on Sundays, there would be 10 slaves at the service for every 1 white person. SR

Refers to when a text alludes to the legacy of slavery years (or decades) after the end of slavery. It was created to tag the references to "sold my Benjamin" in "Go Down, Moses" - a story whose very title alludes to slavery. JBP

This admittedly clumsy term is for when a narrative deals with a character being told or otherwise learning about sexual matters. (The specific impetus for its creation is in "Miss Zilphia Gant" when her mother starts strip searching her at age 13 and begins telling her "what her father had done and what she had done.") JBP