Carothers McCaslin
McCaslin is a plantation owner, and with few exceptions, he serves as the patriarch of the McCaslin family in their various stories. The stories' various characters are often revealed to be within his descent. As a man, he is not really discussed, except to mention that he built the family business from scratch, and he was a man of the times.
Edmonds McCaslin
This youngster helps his Uncle Buck to capture a runaway slave. He watches Buck tactfully navigate another man's attempts to push responsibility of his sister off onto Buck by saying they should marry.
Uncle Buck
When Uncle Buck has the bright idea to chase the runaway slave toward another friendly plantation, the plan works; the other plantation owner sees the slave and catches him, returns him to Uncle Buck, and then tries to offer his sister as Buck's wife. Instead, Buck elects to take a female slave for his runaway to marry.
Lucas Beauchamp
This is Carother's grandson. His last name indicates that he is related to the plantation owner from the last story (the man was also a Beauchamp), but on his mother's side, he is a McCaslin. One of Lucas's grandmothers was impregnated by a slave. Lucas calls her a "negro lover." He spends his days hoping no one learns he is part black, because he is black enough to be made a slave by the law. He digs holes looking for treasure, and his wife leaves him.
Rider
A black man named Rider mourns the untimely death of his wife. When he decides to take the life of a white man, he ends up getting lynched by the neighborhood KKK.
Isaac McCaslin
Isaac is a young boy when his mentor, Sam Fathers, teaches him to hunt. When he kills his first animal, a buck, his mentor anoints him with the blood of the dead animal, according to Native tradition. Isaac has a full-blown ecstatic religious experience in which he encounters "Grandfather," the primordial spirit of a deer. Later he rejects his family's inheretance, disowning himself of them. He is convinced that no human may "own" property, since we are merely a part of nature.
Sam Fathers
This half-Native American man is a master of the hunt and a teacher to Isaac, who is like his apprentice. One day, he anoints Isaac with the blood of Isaac's first hunting kill, a beautiful buck. He explains to Isaac that his vision of a deer spirit was in fact, "Grandfather."
