Once the Sutpen family reaches the eastern part of Virginia on their journey, they begin seeing many enslaved people, described by the narrative as "niggers working in the fields" (182), "regiments of niggers [who] planted and raised" crops (184), "still more niggers [who] plant flowers and trim grass" on the grounds of the big plantation houses (185). The narrative describes these slaves as wearing "better clothes" than the Southern poor white population, which includes the Sutpens (186).
In Sutpen's account of life in the mountains of western Virginia, "the only colored people were Indians and you only looked down at them over your rifle sights" (179).
The "few other people" who live near the Sutpens in the mountains of western Virginia are described "living in log cabins boiling with children," "men and grown boys who hunted," and "women and older girls" who "cook" (179).
The "first black man, slave," that Sutpen ever sees is this "huge bull" of a man who throws his drunken father out of a "doggery," a rough tavern, in the middle of the family's journey across Virginia (182). The man's description focuses on his "mouth loud with laughing and full of teeth like tombstones" (182).
This is the second of the two illegitimate children that one of Thomas Sutpen's older sisters gives birth to before the family reaches the end of their journey in the Tidewater area of Virginia.
This is the first of the two illegitimate children that one of Sutpen's older sisters gives birth to during the family's journey across Virginia; he or she was born in "a cowshed" (183).
Thomas Sutpen has at least two sisters: the narrative says "one of the sisters" altered their father's hand-me-down clothes to fit the young Thomas (185). This entry is for the "sister" who, during the family's move from the mountains to the Tidewater region of Virginia, gives birth in "a cowshed" to an illegitimate child (183), and gets pregnant again, though "still unmarried" (181), while they are still traveling.
Thomas Sutpen comes from a large family, though the novel doesn't say exactly how large. He has at least two older brothers: these "two older boys" leave home "some time before" their mother dies and their father moves the family east (181). This is the brother who "had been as far West as the Mississippi River one time" even before the family left the mountains (183).
Sutpen's mother was "a mountain woman," "bred in the mountains," but in her case the mountains were in Scotland (195). According to Sutpen, she "never did quite learn to speak English" (195). Her husband calls her "a fine wearying woman," and it is suggested that she made him move from coastal Virginia to the mountains (180). Her death precipitates the husband's decision to return east; since there is an infant in the family when the move starts, it seems likely that she died in childbirth.
