Yoknapatawpha

Yoknapatawpha County, pronounced [jɒknəpəˈtɔfə] is a fictional Mississippi county created by the American author William Faulkner, based upon and inspired by Lafayette County, Mississippi, and its county seat of Oxford, Mississippi (which Faulkner renamed Jefferson). Faulkner often referred to Yoknapatawpha County as "my apocryphal county".

From Sartoris onwards, Faulkner would set all but four of his novels in the county (Soldiers' Pay, Pylon, The Wild Palms and A Fable were set elsewhere), as well as over 50 of his stories.Absalom, Absalom! includes a map of Yoknapatawpha County drawn by Faulkner.

The word Yoknapatawpha is derived from two Chickasaw words—Yocona and petopha, meaning "split land". Faulkner said to a University of Virginia audience that the compound means "water flows slow through flat land". Yoknapatawpha was the original name for the actual Yocona River, a tributary of the Tallahatchie which runs through the southern part of Lafayette County.

The area was originally Chickasaw land. White settlement started around the year 1800. Prior to the American Civil War, the county consisted of several large plantations. By family surname, they were: Grenier in the southeast, McCaslin in the northeast, Sutpen in the northwest, and Compson and Sartoris in the immediate vicinity of Jefferson. Later, the county became mostly small farms. By 1936, the population was 25,611, of which 6,298 were white and 19,313 were black.

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