Character guide

Uncle Julius

major

Also known as Julius, old Julius, ole Julius, Julius McAdoo, old Julius McAdoo

Julius McAdoo, once enslaved on the McAdoo plantation, now works odd jobs for John and Annie, a Northern couple new to North Carolina. His tales of conjure and cruelty are never quite innocent: each one tends to end where a small advantage for Julius begins, whether it's a grape patch, a bee-tree, or a job for a relative. He matters because his voice is the book's engine—through him, the buried history of slavery reaches ears that would rather not hear it, wrapped in humor and the fading light of an old man's memory.

Aunt Peggy

supporting

Also known as Peggy, ole Aun' Peggy, Aun' Peggy

Aunt Peggy lives down by the Wilmington Road, the only conjure doctor for miles until a rival sets up shop across the Lumberton Road. She works for payment, never for free, and is careful about conjuring white folks—she wants to be told how each trick turns out. Her power gives the enslaved a shadow justice the law will not: she is the plot's quiet hinge, the figure everyone seeks when the world's ordinary rules have failed them.

Mars Dugal' McAdoo

supporting

Also known as Mars Dugal, ole Mars Dugal' McAdoo, Dugal, Dugal' McAdoo

Mars Dugal' McAdoo owns the plantation where Julius was raised, and his name surfaces in tale after tale of the old slavery days. He is not a monster in the stories so much as a weather system: he lends Sandy out to relatives until the man has no home, trades wives for boot, and treats his people as property to be shifted and swapped. His casual authority is the pressure that makes conjure necessary—and the reason Julius's stories carry a shadow even when they make Annie laugh.

Lonesome Ben

supporting

Also known as Ben

Ben leaves behind a wife, Dasdy, and a small boy, slipping into the woods with stolen bread and tar on his feet to throw off the hounds. He means to follow the North Star, but cloudy nights undo him, and after a week of walking he stumbles out of the woods at the very creek he started from. His story is the book's starkest image of what slavery does to a person's sense of direction—geographic, moral, and inward—and it lingers as one of Julius's darkest tellings.

Dave

supporting

Dave belongs to the world of petty hungers and harsh reckonings that runs through Chesnutt's tales: a stolen ham, a chained neck, a master's justice that is less about the crime than about reminding everyone who owns whom. Around him cluster the small economies of plantation life—food slipped from the big house, favors traded, dignity scraped together—and his fate shows how thin the line is between a minor transgression and a lasting mark.

Jeff

supporting

Also known as Chloe

When Mars Dugal' picks Hannibal over Jeff for house boy and promises Hannibal Chloe as a wife, Chloe decides she will not have it. She sends Jeff to Aunt Peggy with a silver dollar and a silk handkerchief, and comes back with a baby doll made of corn-stalk and elderberry pith—Hannibal, in effigy. Their story is the book's clearest picture of love and conjure braided together: two enslaved people using the only leverage they have against a master's casual matchmaking.

Mars Henry Brayboy

supporting

Also known as ole Mars Henry Brayboy, Henry

Mars Henry Brayboy belongs to the class of slaveholders whose authority is absolute and whose decisions tear families apart without a second thought. His willingness to sell a conjure woman's child for profit reveals the callous economics of slavery, where human bonds are traded like livestock. His actions in the early tales establish the moral landscape of the book: the powerful inflict wounds that the powerless can only answer through conjure and story.

Hannibal

supporting

Also known as Hot-Foot Hannibal, Hot-Foot

Hannibal earns his place in the big house through quickness and competence, but his arrogance toward Chloe blinds him to the plot forming against him. He assumes Chloe will be his in the spring simply because Mars Dugal' has promised it, never bothering to court her or consider her feelings. His hot-footed downfall becomes a cautionary tale about pride and the dangerous ground between the quarters and the big house.

Sis' Becky

supporting

Also known as Becky

Sis' Becky's world revolves around little Mose, and the promise of a brief absence becomes a permanent rupture when the trader reveals he has bought her for his own plantation. Her grief and helplessness in the face of this betrayal embody the systematic destruction of Black families under slavery. Her story matters because it shows how conjure becomes the only recourse for mothers who have no legal or social power to protect their children.

Tom

major

Also known as Mars Tom, young Mars Tom

Tom represents the educated Northern outsider trying to make a go of vineyard farming in the post-war South, dependent on Julius's labor and local knowledge. He listens to Julius's conjure tales with a mixture of amusement and anthropological interest, never quite believing but never quite dismissing them either. His presence frames the stories for readers, modeling the tension between rational disbelief and the undeniable power of narrative.

Annie

major

Also known as Miss Annie, Mis' Annie, young Mis

Annie is the compassionate listener whose questions prompt Julius to share stories that her husband might never have heard. Her Northern upbringing and genuine empathy create a space where Julius can reveal the darker side of slavery through the veil of folklore. She matters because her presence transforms the tales from mere entertainment into testimony, and her reactions guide the reader's own moral response.

Sandy

supporting

Also known as Sandy Campbell

Sandy's value as a worker makes him a commodity passed between Mars Marrabo's children, leaving him with no home, no stability, and no control over his own life. His deep attachment to Tenie drives him to seek a conjure solution when he's sent forty miles away, unable to bear another separation. His plight illustrates how slavery's casual cruelty destroys the most basic human connections, and why conjure becomes the only tool for those with no other power.

Mars Marrabo McSwayne

supporting

Also known as Mars Marrabo, Marrabo, ole Mars Marrabo

Mars Marrabo McSwayne owns the plantation adjoining the narrator's new North Carolina property, and his easy-going generosity with other people's lives sets the whole tragedy in motion. He trades Sandy's first wife to a speculator for a new woman and a good boot, then keeps farming Sandy out to kinfolk for months at a stretch. His casual kindness — a dollar, an apology, a loan to an uncle — is exactly what makes him dangerous, and his decisions drive Sandy toward Tenie's conjure.

Mars Donal

minor

Also known as ole Mars Donal, Donal, Mars Donal' McDonal

A slave owner who appears in tales of conjuring and family curses.

Tenie

supporting

Tenie is Sandy's second wife on Mars Marrabo's place, a woman whose devotion is so plain that even the other enslaved people remark on it. She has not conjured in fifteen years, having turned to religion, but when Sandy faces being sent forty miles away she offers to transform him into whatever will let him stay near her. Her choice — a pine tree by the swamp, turned back only at night — sets up the story's central tension between love, secrecy, and the limits of her power.

Solomon

minor

A slave who helps conjure a punishment for a cruel master.

Primus

minor

Also known as Brer Primus

A slave who participates in conjuring plots and revenge schemes.

Dilsey

minor

Also known as Wiley

A slave woman whose husband Wiley is affected by a conjuring curse.

Kunnel Pen'leton

minor

Also known as ole Kunnel Pen'leton

A colonel who owns a horse that plays a role in a conjuring tale.

Pete

minor

Also known as Brer Pete, little Pete

A slave who is conjured and becomes a victim of supernatural revenge.

Mistah McLean

minor

Also known as Mr. McLean

A white man who interacts with Uncle Julius and the narrator.

Mars Jeems McLean

minor

Also known as young Mars Jeems, Jeems

A cruel slave owner who is transformed by a conjuring spell.

Mabel

minor

A young woman who appears in a tale of love and conjuring.

Chloe

minor

A slave woman who is taken by her master, sparking a conjuring revenge.

Mars Walker

minor

Also known as Walker, Wen Mars Walker

A slave owner who appears in tales of conjuring and supernatural events.

Ole Nick

minor

Also known as Mars Jeems, Jeems

A devil figure who tricks a slave owner into changing his ways.

Mahaly

minor

Also known as Sis' Mahaly

A slave woman who appears in tales of conjuring and family drama.

Ole Aun' Nancy

minor

Also known as Nancy

An elderly slave woman who tells stories and offers wisdom.

Mars Nick Johnson

minor

Also known as Nick, Mars Johnson

A slave owner who appears in a tale of conjuring and revenge.

Tobe

minor

A slave who faces tribulations and is helped by conjuring.

Liza

minor

Also known as Miss' Liza

A young woman who marries into a family with a conjuring curse.

John

minor

Also known as ole Mars John McLean

A slave owner who appears in a tale of family and conjuring.

Dolphus

minor

A slave who is affected by a conjuring plot.

Mars Jim McGee

minor

Also known as Jim, Mars Jim

A slave owner who appears in a tale of conjuring and justice.

Mistah Jim Williams

minor

A white man who interacts with the enslaved community.

Sally

minor

A young woman who appears in a tale of love and loss.

Mars Dunkin McSwayne

minor

Also known as young Mars Dunkin McSwayne, Mars Dunkin

A slave owner who inherits a family curse.

Miss Libbie

minor

A white woman who appears in a tale of conjuring and romance.

Hoddy

minor

A slave who is involved in a conjuring incident.

Young Murchison

minor

Also known as Malcolm Murchison, Murchison

A white man who courts a woman in a conjuring tale.

Mars Marrabo Utley

minor

Also known as Marrabo

A slave owner who appears in a tale of conjuring and family.

Bug

minor

A slave who tells a story to Sis' Becky.

Dasdy

minor

A slave who appears in a tale of conjuring and punishment.

Mars Whiskey

minor

A nickname for a slave owner known for drinking.