Unnamed Enslaved House Negroes

Conventionally, the enslaved people in the antebellum South were divided into two categories: 'field Negroes,' who had little contact with whites other than overseers, and 'house Negroes,' who worked indoors as cooks, maids, butlers, and so on. In Absalom!, Jefferson's "house negroes" first appear accompanying the white "ladies and children" to church services, carrying the "parasols and flywhisks" that keep the sun and insects away from the whites (23). Later, for instance, they appear as "women slaves" and "house niggers" who watch Sutpen's arrest from "the doors and windows" of the homes they work in (36).