LINES OF THE DAY

". . . But the past does not exist independently from the present. Indeed, the past is only past because there is a present, just as I can point to something over there only because I am here. But nothing is inherently over there or here. In that sense, the past has no content. The past -- or more accurately, pastness -- is a position. Thus, in no way can we identify the past as past." p. 15

". . . But we may want to keep in mind that deeds and words are not as distinguishable as often we presume. History does not belong only to its narrators, professional or amateur. While some of us debate what history is or was, others take it into their own hands." p. 153

Silencing the Past: Power and the Production of History (1995) by Michel-Rolph Trouillot

Thursday, February 11, 2010

Yoknapatawpha County's Roots In F. T Leak Plantation Diary

The recently discovered Francis Terry Leak diary of the mid 1800's is what was known as the "Plantation Diary." It's a combination of work schedules and accounts ledger, which means these Plantation Diaries are rich primary source material for historians researching the history of the southern regions of the U.S. and slavery.  I read a number of them, or extracts from them, back in the 80's, when I began my own historical researches into these matters.  Perhaps the one best known until now has been that of the Tombee rice plantation of South Carolina's low country.  The plantation still exists.  I've had a copy of Journal of Thomas B. Chaplin (1822-1890) on my shelves since it was published in 1992.

Evidently Faulkner had access to one of these, belonging to an ancestor of one of his neighboring friends in Mississippi. He spent a great deal of fascinated time with it, making notes, as well as ranting at the owner of the diary for his views on slavery and African Americans..

"The diary and a number of family stories seem to have provided the philosophical and thematic power for
Names of slaves owned by Leak — Caruthers, Moses, Isaac, Sam, Toney, Mollie, Edmund and Worsham — all appear in some form in “Go Down, Moses.” Other recorded names, like Candis (Candace in the book) and Ben, show up in “The Sound and The Fury” (1929) while Old Rose, Henry, Ellen and Milly are characters in “Absalom, Absalom!” (1936). Charles Bonner, a well-known Civil War physician mentioned in the diary, would also seem to be the namesake of Charles Bon in “Absalom.”"

2 comments:

K. said...

By deep southern white standards of the time, Faulkner was a radical.But even he had great reservations about MLK and the Civil Rights movements, fearing that it was trying to go too far, "too fast." Of course, like virtually all deep southern whites, he had a curious notion of "far" and "fast," considering that Jim Crow had held southern blacks in terror and servitude for nearly a century.

Foxessa said...

As a fiction writer who locates one way or another in the historical past, I can feel, myself, the excitement, the fireworks of creative inspiration, that Faulkner received from this historical document that is part and parcel of the world he was re-creating, located in that world geographically and chronologically.

Love, C.