Who is Jane McKeene in the novel, Dread Nation?

Jane is a teenage girl who is living in America in the late 1800s. She was born to the mistress of Rose Hill, a plantation in Kentucky. Her mother was technically a black woman, but she passed for white. Jane's father was a dark-skinned slave. Because Jane's skin was also dark, she was not accepted as the rightful heir to the plantation, but she was treated like the daughter of the mistress and felt she had a good life there. All young blacks and Indians were forced to train to fight the shamblers, dead people who became animated. Though her mother wanted to keep Jane at home, she left home for Miss Preston's School of Combat with the plan to learn to fight the shamblers and return to Rose Hill to protect those she loved. That plan demonstrates her devotion to her family, including the other blacks who lived and worked at Rose Hill.