Sartoris Plantation in Carolina (Location Key)

Although the Sartorises are one of Yoknapatawpha's most important families, very little is known about the place in 'Carolina' John Sartoris left behind when he moved to Mississippi - not even which 'Carolina' Faulkner is thinking of, though it's most likely South Carolina. The Carolina Sartorises owned a slave plantation; according to the story told in Flags in the Dust by Aunt Jenny, the Colonel's sister who joins him in Mississippi after the end of the Civil War, the plantation was established by her "great-great-great-grandfather," and burned down by "drunken Yankee generals" (50). This is also the story that Elnora, the illegitimate bi-racial daughter of the Colonel, tells her children in "There Was a Queen." The number of "greats" Jenny attaches to "grandfather" would make him more or less a contemporary of the fathers and mothers of America's 'Founding Fathers.' Both texts mention the colored window panes that were salvaged from this original family mansion and brought to Mississippi by Jenny in 1869 to grace the family's new plantation home. These panes are our one clue to the family's wealth in Carolina. (See also Carolina in the Civil War in this index.)