# The Conjure Woman — Character guide

> Key figures in The Conjure Woman by Charles W. Chesnutt.

- [Uncle Julius](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_conjure_woman_se/characters/uncle_julius.md): 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 wher
- [Aunt Peggy](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_conjure_woman_se/characters/peggy.md): 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 
- [Mars Dugal' McAdoo](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_conjure_woman_se/characters/mars_dugal_mcadoo.md): 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 rela
- [Lonesome Ben](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_conjure_woman_se/characters/lonesome_ben.md): 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 
- [Dave](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_conjure_woman_se/characters/dave.md): 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 who
- [Jeff](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_conjure_woman_se/characters/jeff.md): 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
- [Mars Henry Brayboy](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_conjure_woman_se/characters/mars_henry_brayboy.md): 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
- [Hannibal](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_conjure_woman_se/characters/hannibal.md): 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'
- [Sis' Becky](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_conjure_woman_se/characters/sis_becky.md): 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 t
- [Tom](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_conjure_woman_se/characters/tom.md): 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 amuseme
- [Annie](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_conjure_woman_se/characters/annie.md): 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 si
- [Sandy](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_conjure_woman_se/characters/sandy.md): 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 
- [Mars Marrabo McSwayne](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_conjure_woman_se/characters/mars_marrabo_mcswayne.md): 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 
- [Mars Donal](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_conjure_woman_se/characters/mars_donal.md): A slave owner who appears in tales of conjuring and family curses.
- [Tenie](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_conjure_woman_se/characters/tenie.md): 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 
- [Solomon](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_conjure_woman_se/characters/solomon.md): A slave who helps conjure a punishment for a cruel master.
- [Primus](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_conjure_woman_se/characters/primus.md): A slave who participates in conjuring plots and revenge schemes.
- [Dilsey](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_conjure_woman_se/characters/dilsey.md): A slave woman whose husband Wiley is affected by a conjuring curse.
- [Kunnel Pen'leton](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_conjure_woman_se/characters/kunnel_penleton.md): A colonel who owns a horse that plays a role in a conjuring tale.
- [Pete](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_conjure_woman_se/characters/pete.md): A slave who is conjured and becomes a victim of supernatural revenge.
- [Mistah McLean](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_conjure_woman_se/characters/mistah_mclean.md): A white man who interacts with Uncle Julius and the narrator.
- [Mars Jeems McLean](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_conjure_woman_se/characters/mars_jeems_mclean.md): A cruel slave owner who is transformed by a conjuring spell.
- [Mabel](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_conjure_woman_se/characters/mabel.md): A young woman who appears in a tale of love and conjuring.
- [Chloe](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_conjure_woman_se/characters/chloe.md): A slave woman who is taken by her master, sparking a conjuring revenge.

HTML index: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_conjure_woman_se/characters