According to Requiem for a Nun, in 1820 Columbia was the temporary location of the Mississippi legislature when the Commission to choose the site of a capital for the new State was authorized (84). Although the novel does not say so, Columbia was named for Columbia, South Carolina, from which many of its early settlers, like many of the inhabitants of Yoknapatawpha, had migrated.
The historical Doak's Stand was the site of a tavern established on the Natchez Trace by William Doak in about 1812. The reference in Requiem for a Nun to how the "wilderness's dark denizens" were already "dispossessed at Doak's Stand" (84) refers to the treaty that the Choctaw Indians signed on 18 October 1820 with the United States, ceding about half of their homeland in Mississippi in return for land west of the Mississippi River.
Port Gibson is a real town near the Mississippi River that was founded in the 18th century as part of the French territory "La Louisiane." According to Requiem for a Nun, in 1830 it was considered as a new location for the state capital (86).
Yalo Busha (as Faulkner's narrator in Requiem for a Nun spells Yalobusha, an Indian word meaning "tadpole place") is a real county southwest of Lafayette, the real county on which his Yoknapatawpha is largely based. The Yalobusha River was part of the boundary between Choctaw and Chickasaw nations. In the novel Yalo Busha is mentioned as the site of an Indian agency.
During the Civil War, "John Sartoris himself" led a "small gang of irregular cavalry" to Tennessee, where they fought with Nathan Bedford Forrest's troops (181). Chattanooga, Tennessee, where several battles took place in 1862 and 1863, is mentioned in the context of the "constricting loop" which the Union forces are drawing around the remaining Confederates during the last months of the war (184). The Battle of Shiloh, mentioned briefly in the narrative in the context of World War II, was fought in April, 1862 (194).
Named for the Indian tribe who occupied much of southern Mississippi before they were "removed" in the 1830s, Natchez was founded by the French at the western end of the Natchez Trace from Nashville. During the antebellum period Natchez became an important river port, but the reason the courier heads there instead of to Nashville to inquire about the reward is probably Natchez's status as the original capital of the Mississippi Territory.
Named for the Indian tribe who occupied much of southern Mississippi before they were 'removed' in the 1830s, Natchez was founded by the French at the western end of the Natchez Trace from Nashville. During the antebellum period Natchez became an important river port, but the reason the courier heads there instead of to Nashville to inquire about the reward is probably Natchez's status as the original capital of the Mississippi Territory.
This unprepossessing "small leanto room like a wood- or a tool-shed" is the original "Yoknapatawpha County courthouse" (4). It was constructed against the side of the (partially dismantled) jail on the day the settlement got its name, and became a 'courthouse' two days later when the box of records was moved into it.
This unprepossessing "small leanto room like a wood- or a tool-shed" is the original "Yoknapatawpha County courthouse" (201). It was constructed against the side of the (partially dismantled) jail on the day the settlement got its name, and had its "consecration or ordination or whatever you call it" as a courthouse two days later, when the residents moved an iron box full of records into it (201).
