Margaret Garner Slavery

We were told to do a report on someone who really stood out and did something to improve slavery. While I was looking for someone to write about Margaret really caught my eye. Margaret Garner was born into slavery on June 4, 1834, as a mulatto (mixed race). Margaret’s mother did not marry a white man, she was raped by her owner and became pregnant, which was common back then so the slave owners could have more slaves without buying them. Margaret was now on the plantation of John Pollard Gaines who might have been her father. Margaret grew up as a house slave and continued to be one throughout her whole slave life. While Margaret was on this plantation she go to go shopping and on trips with her owner(blackpast.org). Later in 1849 …show more content…
Margaret was was curious how she and her family would get to the railroad, but through the time it took her to think the slave catchers were already at the house. Margaret and her family hid in back rooms of the house as the deputies and slave catchers surrounded the house, Robert shot at the men with the gun he stole from his owner. He injured one and killed none, but scared some off. While all this was going on all Margaret could think about is how she could keep her children from slavery. Margaret came to a conclusion that the only way was to kill her children, but she only killed her two year old daughter. Margaret said her sorries and goodbyes then stab the girl with a butcher knife. After she killed her daughter she planned to kill the rest and then herself, but the slave catchers were too fast so she could only injure them. After this incident happened Margaret and the rest of the family were all sent to jail for four weeks after the judge sentenced them two weeks added on to the original two weeks, “it was the longest and most complicated case of its kind”( Weisenburger). Normally if this happened the case would only last a day, but they didn't know what to charge Margaret for murder, or to follow the Fugitive Slave Law. Margaret wanted to be charged with murder so they …show more content…
Her story inspired a lot of books but the most popular was “Beloved” by Toni Morrison who won a Nobel Prize. This book was such a hit that it turned into a movie which is also call “Beloved” starring Oprah Winfrey. According to Suskind, this was a “box office bomb”, but was nominated for an Academy Award for best costume design. This movie wasn’t exactly how it all happened but it had some of the same details, like Sethe , who was supposed to be Margaret, killed her daughter too. Even after the novel and the movie was created off of Margaret’s story they created an opera called “Margaret Garner”. According to wikipedia.org, “Margaret Garner” (opera) only played in three theatres Michigan Opera Theatre, Cincinnati Opera, and Opera Company of Opera , which had very large amounts of people