The title Ambiguous Lives refers to free people of color. Alexander's book focuses on "Free Women of Color in Rural Georgia, 1789-1879." She is a writer and historian. Though reared in New York City, she became interested in this topic because some of her forebears grew up as free people of color in Middle Georgia.

The main emphasis is on members of the Sayre and Hunt families. The genealogy charts and pictures are part of the illustrations. Alexander has done extensive research in books, journals, federal, state, and county government records, and archives, as well as in oral accounts. Since her subjects were residents of Sparta and Hancock County, much of the story is set there. However, those of us who live in Wilkes County may be interested that one of her sources of information is Taliaferro County Records and Notes, compiled by Mell Lunceford, and its essay, "Free Persons of Color: Orphans of History," published in 1988.

Alexander's account begins with a lecture given by Adella Hunt Logan at Atlanta University in 1897. She traces Logan's career back to her family, her African-American and Cherokee grandmother and her Anglo-American father. The characters in her story are interesting in their own right, but she also weaves in the story of the free people of color and the history of the area.

The free status of any woman was supposed to bestow the same condition on her children, regardless of who the father was. A few people of African ancestry came to Georgia when slavery was still prohibited. Some also came later from foreign countries or from states where they had been free. A few were able to purchase their own freedom or were manumitted by their owners. Such manumission became illegal in Georgia as the plantation system took hold. Other restrictive laws were put in place. In 1849, every free person of color had to pay a head tax of five dollars while white men paid only twenty-five cents.

"Most whites considered them irritating anomalies in a society designed to be strictly divided between free and slave, white and black, yet some members of this little-known intermediary group managed to survive in Middle Georgia."

The author can only speculate on how neighbors and family members responded to people like Nathan Sayre and Susan Hunt. He was a prosperous and influential citizen who built a special apartment in his Sparta mansion for Susan and their children and tried to provide for them after his death. They are just one example of families who lived mysterious lives.

The 1860 census reveals the numbers of free people of color in Middle Georgia: Greene, 25; Hancock, 36; Putnam, 31; Warren, 23. (Wilkes is not included in this book.) It was not always possible to count this population, but these figures give us some idea of these "orphans of history." "Although their history has been bypassed, ignored, demeaned, and even obliterated, uncovering and elucidating these less visible subjects presents important and stimulating challenges."

Ambiguous Lives is available at the Mary Willis Library.