Amelia Varnes is the protagonist of Daughters of the Dust. An intelligent and reserved young woman, Amelia lives in Harlem at the start of the novel. She attends Brooklyn College, where she works on a thesis entitled “The Colored People of the Carolina Coast” (58). At the start of the novel, Amelia seemingly represents the antithesis of Gullah-Geechee culture, having assimilated fully into the urban Black culture in Harlem and received the kind of prestigious university education that is inaccessible to Black residents of the Sea Islands. Amelia has been completely cut off from her Gullah-Geechee roots by Haagar, who encourages her to strive for upward mobility and forget about her family’s past.

Amelia’s fieldwork as well as curiosity about her heritage brings her back to Dawtuh Island. Over the course of the narrative, Amelia learns about her family’s rich and complicated history. She is initially put off by how differently her Gullah-Geechee relatives live, seeing their beliefs and traditions as antithetical to the kind of progress happening in the North. However, Amelia soon begins to appreciate the strong and caring community that flourishes on Dawtuh Island. Her fieldwork becomes a journey of self-discovery as she slowly pieces together her own life story from the accounts of others.