Daughters of the Dust

Published in 1999, Julie Dash’s Daughters of the Dust is a historical fiction novel based on her acclaimed film of the same name. Daughters of the Dust is a stand-alone narrative that follows the lives of the Peazants, a Gullah-Geechee family living primarily on Dawtuh Island off the South Carolina coast. The narrative blends magical realism, myth, and history as it follows the journey of Amelia Varnes, an estranged descendant of the Peazants who returns to Dawtuh Island to trace the history of her family. Through Amelia’s journey, Dash explores themes of History, Storytelling, and Identity, Cultural Preservation Versus Progress, and The Importance of Family and Community.

This guide refers to the 2021 Penguin Random House digital edition.

Content Warning: Daughters of the Dust contains descriptions of sexual abuse, sexual assault, suicide, enslavement, racism, racist violence, and racial slurs that are only replicated in direct quotations in this guide.

Plot Summary

The novel begins by describing the emergence of a chain of islands off the North Atlantic coast. Home to rich flora and fauna, these islands become an attractive settling point for various civilizations. During the 1800s, enslaved people from Central and West Africa are brought to the islands. The mingling of their various cultures with the culture of Indigenous Americans gives rise to a creole culture known as Gullah-Geechee.

In 1926, college student Amelia Varnes lives in Harlem, New York with her domineering grandmother, Haagar Peazant, and her sickly mother, Myown Varnes. Haagar and Myown are of Gullah-Geechee origin, but Haagar looks down on her heritage with disdain. Two decades prior to the events of the novel, Haagar moved from her birthplace of Dawtuh Island to Harlem, seeking a better life on the mainland. Since then, she has tried to eradicate all traces of her Gullah-Geechee heritage. Haagar’s other daughter, Iona, chose to remain on Dawtuh Island, causing Haagar to snub her completely.

Amelia is working on a thesis entitled “The Colored People of the Carolina Coast” (58). As part of her fieldwork, she travels to Dawtuh Island to learn about the lives of her Gullah-Geechee relatives. Although her family is initially wary of her intentions, Amelia bonds with them, becoming particularly close with her plucky cousin, Elizabeth Peazant, and her aunt and uncle, Eli and Eula Peazant.

Although she received a finishing school education on the mainland, Elizabeth Peazant moved back to Dawtuh Island by choice. She respects the old traditions of Gullah-Geechee culture; between shifts as a teacher at the local school, she practices West African folk spiritualism and works on restoring the home of her grandmother, Nana Peazant. Elizabeth enjoys living on the island among her many family members but is frustrated by the constraints placed upon both her and her students. Elizabeth makes frequent trips to the mainland of South Carolina to visit her former employers, two white sisters named Evangeline and Genevieve Bouvier. Although they occasionally still employ Elizabeth’s services as a maid, they consider her to be a friend and are invested in her education. Through the Bouviers, Elizabeth meets a young woman named Natalie Duvalier. Natalie offers Elizabeth the opportunity to sell her own homemade charms in a high-end boutique in Paris.

As the people on Dawtuh Island warm up to Amelia, she begins collecting stories from each of them. These stories piece together a portrait of her family’s history, beginning in the era of enslavement and continuing to the present moment. Many of the stories involve accounts of the ways that the old deities helped enslaved Africans to survive otherwise impossible circumstances. Amelia learns about the resilience of her ancestors and the ways in which their descendants’ continuing beliefs in the old spirits influence modern-day life on the islands. In recent years, the belief in these old deities has slipped, causing some elders to worry that those on the island will lose their divine protections.

In the course of her investigations into her family’s history, Amelia uncovers the truth about Haagar’s childhood and learns that her grandmother grew up in a severely abusive household. Other revelations follow, including the discovery of human remains belonging to murdered enslaved people on Dawtuh Island. Amelia takes part in a traditional West African burial ritual to lay the spirits of the murdered people to rest, a transformative experience, which leads her to embrace all aspects of her Gullah-Geechee heritage.

At the end of six months of study on Dawtuh Island, Amelia reluctantly returns to Harlem and successfully defends her thesis, but she realizes that publishing it will expose the Gullah-Geechee community to harm from outsiders. She retracts her thesis and instead returns to Dawtuh Island, this time taking Myown to live with her in Nana Peazant’s old home. Meanwhile, Elizabeth decides to travel to Paris, where she will set up shop with Natalie. The novel ends on the eve of Elizabeth’s departure, with the Peazant family, sans Haagar, gathered happily at Nana Peazant’s home on Dawtuh Island.