When most people think about slavery they think about our country’s history and the economic effect it had. Our county’s economy was built on slavery, with free labor, unlimited profit, and making whites filthy rich. But how much do we really know about how it affected a single human being and the choices they had to make? We read about former slaves’ biographies/autobiographies and watch documentaries in school. Margaret Garner´s story is told and taught for many reasons. One being how much focus it extracted on the topic of the cruelty of slavery.
Margaret Garner was an enslaved African-American woman, born June 4th 1834 and died at the age of 24 in 1858. She was born in Kentucky and lived on a plantation owned by the Gaine`s family. Like many enslaved people she endured extreme hardship, lack of freedom and consistent threat to herself and her children. In 1856 Margaret and her family escaped across the frozen Ohio River to Ohio, which was a free state to seek Freedom From Slavery. Her life and background reflect the brutal realities of slavery in the United States and the desperation enslaved people felt to protect their families from being forced into slavery.
In 1856 after her family escaped freedom in Ohio, slave catchers tracked them down under the Fugitive Law act. Faced with the possibility that her child would be forced back into slavery, Gardner made the devastating decision to kill her youngest daughter rather than allow her to be captured. She believed death was less cruel than enslavement. She was arrested and was put on trial. Abolitionists argued that her actions expose the moral cruelty of the system itself instead criminalizing a woman who has been put through suffering, misery, and torment.
Margaret Gardner’s story had a powerful impact on American history because it exposed the moral horrors of slavery and intensified the extreme debate over slavery in the 1800s-1900s. Her story drew attention, especially because it showed how enslaved people were pushed to make impossible choices in a time that denied them control over their own lives and their children’s lives. Many abolitionists use her story to argue against the Fugitive Slave Act to show ruthless forcing escaped enslaved people back into bondage was, even in free states.
Over time, Margaret Garner’s experience became a symbol of resilience and helped shape how Americans understand the emotional cost of slavery, influencing historical memory, literature and justice and freedom. To further publicize her story there is a book called Beloved written by Toni Morrison. She writes it in a way that emphasizes the hardship and not the decision no mother should even have to make. Gardner’s life story is remembered not for violence but for how her choices revealed the extreme conditions of slavery and the lengths to which a mother might go to protect her child from it.
