Andrew Hawkins, the narrator and protagonist, begins as an enslaved person on a South Carolina cotton plantation; his greatest desire is to buy his own freedom and that of his family. As a young man, Andrew feels superior to other slaves because he is biracial; his light skin allows him to pass as white. An intelligent, educated person, he also feels superior to many whites. The novel follows him after he leaves plantation life when he is 20.

George Hawkins, Andrew’s father, is a butler in the house on the plantation, called Cripplegate. Drinking with his apparently easy-going master, Jonathan Polkinghorne, George is fooled into imagining their near equality; this leads to his sleeping with the mistress, who gives birth to Andrew. After George is banished from the house and forced to herd oxen instead, he suffers from depression.

Mattie Hawkins is George’s wife, who raises Andrew as her own son but cannot forgive George’s behavior.

Ezekiel Sykes-Withers is Andrew’s tutor whom Jonathan hires to teach him for seven years. The boy learns Latin, Greek, and philosophy.

Minty is the daughter of a maid of the plantation. Andrew falls in love with her and determines to buy her freedom.

Flo Hatfield, a middle-aged widow, owns a large farm, Leviathan, which she has inherited. Jonathan sends Andrew there to work, assuming she will take him as her lover. She has a reputation for killing former lovers, but Andrew is sent to work in the mines.

Reb, called the Coffinmaker, is a carpenter at Leviathan. When he takes Andrew’s side in a dispute with Flo, she sends him to the mines as well. The two men escape on the way.

Horace Bannon, the “Soulcatcher,” is a slave-hunter who Flo Hatfield sends to pursue Andrew and Reb. He kills Andrew’s father and then stops searching for Andrew.

Peggy Undercliff, an upper-class young white woman, meets Andrew in Spartansburg while he is passing. They marry and have a child.

Gerald Undercliff, a physician, is Peggy’s father. He learns that Andrew is passing, but rather than expose him, he promotes his marriage to Peggy.