Daughters of the Dust

Content Warning: This section of the guide mentions sexual assault and mass suicide.

Elizabeth takes her class to the beach. She attempts to teach them about their ancestors, but few of her students are literate, and she grows discouraged when they struggle to understand her. The school on was previously staffed by missionary teachers who left five years ago. Elizabeth suspects that they were sent away because they were priming the children to leave for the mainland. Elizabeth herself has been instructed to teach the children only the bare minimum needed for a life spent farming on the islands. Elizabeth makes her way to the large boat that boatman Willis George uses to ferry people back and forth to the mainland. There, she encounters Sugarnun, an attractive man known for his philandering. As a teenager, Elizabeth entertained a brief physical relationship with Sugarnun that ended when her father caught them together and sent her to finishing school on the mainland. In the intervening years, Sugarnun seduced the most beautiful girl on the island, Sallie Lee, but abandoned her when he learned of her pregnancy. Willis George, who had always loved Sallie Lee, proposed to her and promised to raise the child but was secretly relieved when the baby was stillborn.