Description

NATIONAL BOOK AWARD WINNER NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER WINNER OF THE CUNDILL HISTORY PRIZE

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 for her with a few items and soon after the nineyearold girl was separated from her mother and sold Decades later Ashleys granddaughter Ruth embroidered this family history on the sack in spare haunting language

Historian Tiya Miles carefully traces these womens faint presence in archival records and where archives fall short she turns to objects art and the environment to write a singular history of the experience of slavery and the uncertain freedom afterward in the United States All That She Carried is a poignant story of resilience and love
passed down against steep odds It honours the creativity and resourcefulness of people who preserved family ties when official systems refused to do so and it serves as a visionary illustration of how to reconstruct and recount their stories today