A Mercy Characters

D’Ortega’s wife is a Portuguese Catholic woman and the wife of D’Ortega, a slave owner. She wears overly fine clothes and is vain and shallow. Jacob finds her repulsive when he visits their plantation.

Patrician is Rebekka and Jacob’s daughter, and the only one of their children to live past infancy. Cherished by her parents, Patrician only lives to age five, when a horse kicks her in the head. Patrician’s skull cracks as a result and she dies several days later.

Florens’s brother is a baby and a slave on the D’Ortega plantation when Florens is sold to Jacob. Florens feels that her mother chose her brother over her.

Twin is Sorrow’s imaginary friend. Sorrow imagines Twin playing with her and talking to her. Twin looks exactly like Sorrow, and she first appeared to her after the traumatic shipwreck that only Sorrow survived. Twin disappears after Sorrow has her first healthy child.

Regina is the horse that Jacob rides from where his boat lands in Virginia to D’Ortega’s plantation in Maryland.

Peter Downes is a trader in the Caribbean sugar and rum industry. Jacob meets him on his way home from his business trip to Maryland. Peter Downes looks worse for wear, but he tells Jacob about the fantastic wealth to be made on the rum industry in Barbados.

Anne is a passenger on Rebekka’s transatlantic ship. Unlike the other women, who are thieves and prostitutes, Anne is a middle class woman who is being sent away to the colonies for disgracing her family.

Judith is a passenger on Rebekka’s transatlantic ship. She is a prostitute who chose to go to America rather than be sentenced to prison.

Lydia is a passenger on Rebekka’s transatlantic ship. She is a prostitute who chose to go to America rather than be sentenced to prison.

Patty is a passenger on Rebekka’s transatlantic ship. She is the ten-year-old daughter of Lydia.

Elizabeth is a passenger on Rebekka’s transatlantic ship. She is supposedly the daughter of a Company agent.

Dorothea is a passenger on Rebekka’s transatlantic ship. A cutpurse, she was forced to choose between exile and prison, so she decided to go to America. Of all the women Rebekka meets on the ship, Rebekka feels closest with Dorothea.

Abigail is one of the women on Rebekka’s transatlantic ship. Abigail catches the Captain’s eye, and she spends most of the voyage in his quarters.

The Ney Brothers drive the wagon that Florens uses to travel to the Blacksmith’s house.

Figo is a slave boy on the D’Ortegas’ plantation in Maryland. When Florens was a child, they used to play together.

Bess is Figo’s mother and a slave woman on the D’Ortegas’ plantation in Maryland. Like Florens’s mother, Bess was gang raped when she arrived on the plantation.