Book Review: The Slave Daughter

By Farris Yawn

Several years ago, local history instructor Bob Lipscomb was asked by his aunts to help do some research on the Sardis community of Cherokee County. While working on that research, he came across information about the early settlers and the slaves they brought with them. There was very little information about these people, but his aunt found a descendant of one of these slaves. She told him that family legend told that her ancestor was not just her owners property, but his daughter as well.

Mr. Lipscomb could not find enough additional information to tell the true story of these early residents, but the story would not leave him. It eventually became the basis for his first novel, The Slave Daughter.

The Slave Daughter follows the struggles and hardships the slaves endured through the turbulent period before the Civil War, as they worked to survive and build the Sardis Community and build their own community after the war.

Many details of that era are lost to time, so the author was forced to fill in details from his imagination and his knowledge of the area. His hope is that this story will help give a better understanding and appreciation of the people who helped settle this area, and he hopes you will agree with his conclusion: The slaves of Sardis and Hickory Log persevered and endured until a better day only barely glimpsed. In doing so, they proved their own humanity and the potential, only barely realized, of all of us.