Bibliograph

All that she carried, the journey of Ashley's sack, a black family keepsake, Tiya Miles

Type

Label

All that she carried, the journey of Ashley's sack, a black family keepsake, Tiya Miles

Language

eng

Bibliography note

Includes bibliographical references

resource.biographical

collective biography

Index

no index present

Literary Form

non fiction

Main title

All that she carried

Nature of contents

bibliography

Responsibility statement

Tiya Miles

Sub title

the journey of Ashley's sack, a black family keepsake

Summary

In 1850s South Carolina, an enslaved woman named Rose faced a crisis, the imminent sale of her daughter Ashley. Thinking quickly, she packed a cotton bag with a few precious items as a token of love and to try to ensure Ashley's survival. Soon after, the nine-year-old girl was separated from her mother and sold. Decades later, Ashley's granddaughter Ruth embroidered this family history on the bag in spare yet haunting language -- including Rose's wish that "It be filled with my Love always." Ruth's sewn words, the reason we remember Ashley's sack today, evoke a sweeping family story of loss and of love passed down through generations. Historian Tiya Miles carefully unearths these women's faint presence in archival records to follow the paths of their lives -- and the lives of so many women like them -- to write a singular and revelatory history of the experience of slavery, and the uncertain freedom afterward, in the United States

Target audience

adult

resource.variantTitle

Journey of Ashley's sack, a black family keepsake

Creator