In 1850s South Carolina, an enslaved woman faced a crisis: the sale of her daughter Ashley. She packed a bag for her, and, soon after, the girl was sold. Decades later, Ashley's granddaughter embroidered this family history on the sack. Historian Tiya Miles traces these women's presence to write a singular history of the experience of slavery, and the uncertain freedom afterward. Winner of the National Book Award, Anisfield-Wolf Book Award, Lawrence W. Levine Award and the Darlene Clark Hine Award.