William Styron
RUNAWAY
Like mine, Hark's misfortune had been that he was only
a single item among a man's total capital, and this was instantly and
easily disposable when the economy foundered. A Negro as fantastic
as Hark could always command a lovely price. Like me, he too had
been born and reared on a large plantation-his in Sussex county
which borders on Southampton to the north. This plantation had
been liquidated along about the same year as Turner's Mill and
Hark had been bought by Joseph Travis, who at that time had not
developed his wheelmaking craft but was still engaged in farming.
Hark's former owners, people or monsters named Barnett, proposed
to develop a new plantation down in a section of Mississippi where
field labor was at that moment abundant and female house labor
scarce. And so they took Hark's mother and his two sisters with them
and left Hark behind, the money gained from his sale financing the
rather difficult and expensive overland trip to the Delta. Poor Hark.
He was devoted to his mother and his sisters-indeed he had never
spent a day in his life apart from them. Thus began what was to
become one of a series of bereavements; seven or eight years later
he was separated forever by Travis from his wife and little son.
Hark was never (at least until I was able to bend him to my
will) an obstreperous or intractable Negro, and for much of the
time I knew him I lamented the fact that as with most young slaves
brought up as field hands-ignorant, demoralized, cowed by overseers
and black drivers, occasionally whipped- the plantation system had
leached out of his great and noble body so much native courage,
so much spirit and dignity, that he was left as humble as a spaniel
in the face of the white man's presence and authority. Nonetheless,
