Who is Nehemiah?

Nehemiah is the white man who interrogates Dessa regarding her escape from the coffle, allegedly as part of his research for his next novel. Though he has never owned slaves, all of Nehemiah's writing centers around slave-related issues. His books are interested in investigating and solving rebellious slave behaviors and offering owners new tactics for controlling them. The passages devoted to Nehemiah's point of view, particularly those contained within the first section, The Darky, prove his cruelty, racial biases, and inability to operate outside his society's pervasive belief systems.