# Mars Marrabo McSwayne — The Conjure Woman character guide

> Mars Marrabo McSwayne in The Conjure Woman by Charles W. Chesnutt.

**Role:** supporting

**Also known as:** Mars Marrabo, Marrabo, ole Mars Marrabo

**First appearance:** 0005-the-gray-wolf-s-ha-nt

## Snapshot

A slaveholder so eager to please his grown children that he lends one man, Sandy, from plantation to plantation until the man has no home, no wife, and no master at all.

## Who they are

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.

## In the story

### [Po' Sandy](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_conjure_woman_se/chapters/po-sandy)

Sandy's master who lends him out to family and eventually swaps Sandy's wife for another woman.

### [Lonesome Ben](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_conjure_woman_se/chapters/lonesome-ben)

Ben's master, who punishes him and later fails to recognize him.

### [Tobe's Tribulations](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_conjure_woman_se/chapters/tobe-s-tribulations)

Mentioned as the master of a neighboring plantation from which a slave ran away.

## Links

- HTML: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_conjure_woman_se/characters/mars_marrabo_mcswayne
- Book: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_conjure_woman_se
- All characters: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_conjure_woman_se/characters