Florens
Florens is an enslaved sixteen-year-old girl working for the Vaarks; Jacob took her as payment from D'Ortega. She is literate but psychologically traumatized by her mother's apparent abandonment of her, and thus she forms a deep bond with Lina, whom she comes to see as a mother figure. She is enamored with the Blacksmith and hopes to make a life with him, but her disappointment with the conditions of their reunion—the Blacksmith seems to favor the child Malaik over her—leads her to lash out violently against him. By the end of the novel, due to her rage and sorrow, she has turned inward and is, as Scully sees it, "untouchable."
Lina
Lina is a Native American woman enslaved to Jacob and Rebekka. She is stoic, hardworking, intuitive, and fiercely loyal to Rebekka and then Florens, the latter whom she thinks of as a daughter. Her tribe and family were wiped out by smallpox and she was adopted by Presbyterians who viewed her as a heathen. She sees the Blacksmith as a threat to Florens and the farm in general, and is also suspicious of Sorrow, seeing her as a chaotic force.
Rebekka
Rebekka is an English woman who marries Jacob Vaark and immigrates to the New World to be with him. Hardworking and often unflappable, she and her husband get along well. She also forms a deep bond with Lina, one of her servants. Losing all of her children unmoors her, however, and once she also loses Jacob to smallpox and nearly dies herself, she embraces a cold and callous type of religious piety that further fragments the community of women on the Vaark farm.
Jacob Vaark
Vaark is a Dutch man who grew up poor and emigrated to the New World to take ownership of a patroonship in the colony of New York left to him by his uncle. Needing a wife, he places an ad and marries Rebekka, whom he respects and loves. He is not a successful farmer and, though he does not like slavery and is not cruel to the slaves he does have, is swayed to invest in a sugar plantation in Barbados. He falls ill from smallpox and dies as his grand house is being completed; Willard and Scully believe his ghost has come back to haunt the house.
Sorrow
A (likely) mixed-race girl, Sorrow is the daughter of a sea captain who loses her father and everyone else aboard the ship when it founders off the coast. After this trauma she develops an invisible friend, whom she calls "Twin." She is brought into the household of a sawyer and his wife, but they grow irritated with her poor work ethic—she is dreamy, perhaps addled, fickle, and wandering. Jacob Vaark agrees to take her on and she lives with the Vaarks henceforth. She bears one child when she first arrives, which Lina declares is stillborn, and has another child by an unknown man (maybe Jacob) that she is able to cherish and love. As a result of motherhood, Twin vanishes and Sorrow renames herself "Complete."
The Blacksmith
The Blacksmith is a free Black man who comes to Jacob Vaark's new house to build the impressive wrought-iron gates and begins a sexual relationship with Florens. He is confident and his presence makes everyone feel something, whether lust, fear, resentment, or jealousy. He adopts an orphaned Black boy named Malaik and chooses him over Florens, deeming her too wild and too much of a slave for him.
Willard
Willard is a white indentured servant sold for seven years to a Virginia planter; he had years added to his term for theft and assault. He is hardworking and appreciates Jacob and Rebekka, especially when Rebekka pays him wages. He is close with Scully, with whom he occasionally has sexual relations, and is kind to Sorrow.
Scully
Scully is a white indentured servant who works for Jacob and then Rebekka. He is a young man when his "father" leases him into bondage, and then, following a scandal with an Anglican curate, is sent even further away to work off his peonage. He is gay and has a sexual relationship with Willard. He is "mentally feisty" (154), kind, and hardworking.
Senhor D'Ortega
He is a gaudy, shallow, callous slave trafficker and landowner in Maryland who, when he cannot pay Jacob what he owes him, offers Jacob one of his slaves instead.
D'Ortega's Wife
She is a vain, fatuous woman whom Jacob finds well-suited to her husband.
Peter Downes
He is a loquacious man Jacob meets at a tavern who brags about how much money he makes in the West Indies sugar trade.
Florens' Mother
Florens' "minha mae," or "my mother" in Portuguese, is an enslaved woman on the D'Ortega plantation. At the end of the novel she chronicles her capture in Africa, journey over the Atlantic in the Middle Passage, and her rape at the hands of white traders. She has two children from these rapes, and despite the trauma of their conception, she loves her children deeply. She makes the wrenching choice to suggest Jacob take Florens rather than her; this is done to protect Florens from D'Ortega.
Malaik
He is the young Black boy the Blacksmith adopts.
Widow Ealing
She takes Florens in for a night, feeding her and giving her a place to sleep after she hears Florens is an orphan. She is pious and fearful of her religious community, which suspects that her daughter Jane is a witch. She lashes her daughter's legs so the persecutors will realize only humans, not demons, bleed.
Jane Ealing
The Widow's daughter, she has one non-moving eye and the religious community suspects she is a witch. While she seems docile and compliant on the outside, she helps Florens escape and admits to her that she is a demon.
