Tiya Miles, a Harvard historian who has written extensively on slavery and Native American history, tells the story of a single object: a cotton bag embroidered with the words 'My great grandmother Rose / mother of Ashley / gave her this sack when / she was sold at age 9 / in South Carolina.' Starting from this artifact donated to a museum, Miles reconstructs the lives of Rose, Ashley, and their descendants across three generations, demonstrating what can be recovered about enslaved people whose lives were deliberately excluded from official archives. The book weaves together material culture, historical records, and informed speculation to illuminate the inner lives of enslaved women: the herbs and provisions Rose packed in the bag, the forced separations that made such gifts necessary, the determination to maintain family bonds despite slavery's assault on kinship. Miles examines how enslaved women created and preserved objects that carried emotional and spiritual significance, arguing that these artifacts constitute a form of archive that historians have undervalued. The book also traces how the sack passed through generations to reach Ruth Middleton, who added the embroidered text in the twentieth century, preserving family memory. By focusing on a single object, Miles makes visible the love, resistance, and survival strategies of millions of people whose individual stories have been lost.