De Spain Mansion in "Barn Burning" (Location)

The home of Major de Spain, this is one of the biggest plantation houses in Yoknapatawpha County. It is a grand columned mansion set in a "grove of oaks and cedars and other flowering trees and shrubs" (10). Fronted by a "fence massed with honeysuckle and Cherokee roses," it is accessed by "a gate swinging open between two brick pillars" (10). Sarty is struck by its size - "It's as big as a courthouse," he thinks - and associates it with "peace and dignity" (10). Ab claims that the white columns represent black labor: "'Pretty and white, ain't it?' he said. "That's sweat. Nigger sweat" (32).  Major de Spain refers to the "commissary" on the plantation, where Ab's contract as a tenant farmer is kept (16); this is the earliest mention of a commissary, that crucial part of any plantation's money-making operation, in the fictions.  Faulkner does not specify a location for the De Spain plantation, but many of Yoknapatawpha's plantations are located in the fertile and flat land northwest of Jefferson. Furthermore, Faulkner's Absalom, Absalom! map locates the de Spain hunting camp in the county's far northwestern corner.