If you were black and living in the Deep South in 1853, you had one destiny: serve your master as a slave until your death. If you were an attractive, young, half-black, half-white, sixteen-year-old female slave who passed for white, and whose father was the owner of the plantation, your future was less clear. Looking white would not lessen your load-indeed, it would cause you feelings of confusion, love mixed with hate and sometimes violent rage,...