Review: Daughter of a Daughter of a Queen

Daughter of a Daughter of a Queen by Sarah Bird
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

Daughter of the Daughter of a Queen is a historical novel based on the life of a real-life figure, Cathy/Cathay Williams, a Missouri-born contraband slave pressed into service during the Civil War, who later enlisted in the Buffalo Soldiers of the US Army while posing as a man. Cathy Williams led an amazing life, and she was finally recognized with a bust in Leavenworth, Kansas in 2016 and a memorial bench at the National Infantry Museum in Columbus, Georgia in 2018. My chief problems with this novel are the liberties and embellishments that the author has taken with Williams' story that didn't enhance my appreciation of Williams' life and the tragedy of her death. (In failing health, Williams' was denied military benefits for her service during the war and in the Buffalo Soldiers, in spite of being diabetic and a multiple amputee at the time of her application for the benefits.)

Bird has created a backstory of Williams being descended from an African queen when the facts are that there is sadly no information about where Williams' maternal line actually descended from in Africa. She has also altered what appear to be the facts of Williams early life as a slave, including having her remain with her mother and sister until conscripted. Facts indicate that Cathy Williams was separated from her mother (her father was a free man) at a very early age, as shown by her own statements made in the St. Louis Daily Times article of 1876. (My reference for that is Cathy Williams: From Slave to Buffalo Solider which, while less than perfect, does have references for facts of her life.) While little is known about Williams' early life beyond her own statements and a few slim sources in the National Archives, as I read through the first quarter to a third of this novel, I began to feel the embellishments of this fearless woman's life were not necessary to engage the reader. I was puzzled even by the distortions of factual history about Sheridan versus Benton being the officer initially pressing Williams into service all to yield a fictional meeting with Sheridan in her later life. Williams did serve under Sheridan's command after conscription, but not until she was transferred to Washington DC. (Things like this left me feeling like I do after I go to a movie with a screenplay in which several figures have been made into a composite because they want to simplify things for the viewers of a two-hour movie. This is a book, and I expect many characters.) Then there is the fact that Bird invented a romantic relationship with a fellow soldier but completely ignores the fact that Cathy Williams suffered a disastrous marriage in Pueblo, Colorado after her discharge from service with the Buffalo Soldiers. Her husband stole her belongings, and she had to have him arrested. She moved not long after to Trinidad, Colorado, where she resided until her death around age fifty.

Additionally, while I understand that Bird is trying to give us the post-Civil War world through Williams' eye, the broad use of the racial term "Indian" with minimal differentiation between various tribes of Native Americans was troubling to me. Not all Native American tribes were out there scalping American colonizers, but the broad facts are that Native Americans were just about as badly treated as had been African American slaves, albeit in different ways. They were certainly vulnerable to being abused, killed without due process, and were ripped from their homes, territory, and family in much the same way, as well. The novel provides little context for the Indian Wars.

Bird wanted to her novel to tell the story of a great American woman, whose story was for a time lost in history. I know her intentions were good, but the way in which the book has been written was, to me, something of a disservice to Cathy Williams because so much of Willilams' life story has been fictionalized while facts that are known from Williams herself have been ignored. Sadly, the takeaway for some readers is likely to be that Bird is a white author making up aspects of the life of a great African American woman, ignoring some of her most poignant and relevant personal issues, all while glossing over and amplifying the disparaging words and prevailing views of Native Americans, without context.

I received a Digital Review Copy from St. Martin's Press along with a paper review copy, in exchange for an honest review.

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