All That She Carried: The Journey of Ashley's Sack, a Black Family Keepsake

Dr. Tiya Miles is the Michael Garvey professor of history at Harvard University, and her research focus is in American history, specifically as it relates to the experiences of women and people of color and the issues of slavery, race, gender, sexuality, and cultural history. She earned a degree in Afro-American Studies from Harvard University, a Master of Arts in Women’s Studies from Emory University, and her PhD in American Studies from the University of Minnesota. Miles has written six books, including The Dawn of Detroit, for which she won the Frederick Douglass Prize. In All That She Carried, Miles traces the origins of Ashley’s Sack, sorting through historical records often kept by and for male enslavers to uncover the stories of the African American women behind the artifact.

Mother of Ashley and packer of the sack, Rose was an enslaved woman who was part of the Robert Martin household as a domestic servant at the time of his death and her daughter’s sale. The value of $700 assigned to her in the property records amassed after Martin’s death suggests that she possessed a high level of skill, likely in the areas of sewing or cooking. Rose worked at the Martin home in downtown Charleston and was approximately 34 old when she packed the sack for her daughter in December of 1852 or early 1853. Miles suggests that it was possible that Ashley was not Rose’s only child, as most enslaved women had given birth to at least one child before the age of 19. Rose disappears from the records after the death of Robert Martin, but Miles found a record of a woman named Rose who died in a containment site for enslaved persons belonging to an associate of the Martins and suggests that this may be the same Rose.

Daughter of Rose and recipient of the sack, Ashley was nine years old when she was sold away from the Martin estate following Robert Martin’s death and the dissolution of his personal property. Ashley most likely resided at Milberry, the Martin family plantation, before her sale, and likely remained in the area through her emancipation, as her descendants all hailed from the same part of South Carolina. Ashley was the grandmother of Ruth Middleton, and likely the mother of Rosa Jones, Ruth’s mother, though alternatively she could have been the mother of Austin Jones, Ruth’s father. Miles interprets the phrasing “Ashley is my grandmother” embroidered on Ashley’s sack as an indication that Ruth knew Ashley personally and perhaps lived with or close by Ruth when Ruth was a child.