#margaret garner

On January 28, 1856, Margaret Garner, her husband Robert, their four children, and approximately 11 other enslaved people crossed the frozen Ohio River. The Garners sought shelter in Margaret’s uncle’s home along Mill Creek. While in hiding, Margaret’s uncle, worried about how to keep the family safe, left his home to consult with Cincinnati abolitionist Levi Coffin.

Before his return home, U.S. Marshals and slave catchers surrounded and ultimately stormed the home. Faced with seeing her children returned to slavery, Margaret ended her two year old’s life just before being apprehended.

Margaret was held for trial in Cincinnati and abolitionists from across the country came to support her. Abolitionist Lucy Stone spoke at her trial stating, “If in her deep maternal love she felt the impulse to send her child back to God, to save it from coming woe, who shall say she had no right not to do so?”

Margaret was returned to slavery. When Ohio authorities got a warrant for Garner to try her for murder, they were unable to find her. She and her husband, Robert, died in 1858 of typhoid fever in Mississippi. Garner’s story inspired Nobel Prize-winner Toni Morrison’s novel "Beloved".

These remarkable black men and women never received obituaries in The New York Times — until now. We’re adding their stories to our project about prominent people whose deaths were not reported by the newspaper.

Since 1851, The New York Times has published thousands of obituaries, capturing the lives and legacies of people who have influenced the world in which we live.

But many important figures were left out.

Overlooked reveals the stories of some of those remarkable people.

We started the series last year by focusing on women like Sylvia Plath, the postwar poet; Emma Gatewood, the hiking grandmother who captivated a nation; and Ana Mendieta, the Cuban artist whose work was bold, raw and sometimes violent. We added to that collection each week.

Now, this special edition of Overlooked highlights a prominent group of black men and women whose lives we did not examine at the time of their deaths.

Many of them were a generation removed from slavery. They often attempted to break the same barriers again and again. Sometimes they made myth out of a painful history, misrepresenting their past to gain a better footing in their future. Some managed to achieve success in their lifetimes, only to die penniless, buried in unmarked graves. But all were pioneers, shaping our world and making paths for future generations.

We hope you’ll spread the word about Overlooked — and tell us who else we missed.

Read about the project’s first year, and use this form to nominate a candidate for future Overlooked obits.

[from The Practice of Citizenship: Black Politics and Print Culture by Dr. Derrick Spires]

These poems by abolitionist writer Frances Harper are often paired together, not only because of their similar titles but also because the second serves as a kind of sequel or advancement of the first. In the 1850's, abolitionist thinking began to move away from "cultivating white sympathy" toward calls to action. While the more simple, sentimental language of the first poem is effective, its only goal seems to be to garner emotional reactions - "She is a mother, and her heart is breaking in despair." The second poem, though, does not stop at sympathy, but goes on to demand justice: "Will ye not, as men and Christians, on the side of freedom stand?" (By the way, the second poem is inspired by the story of Margaret Garner, an escaped slave who killed her two-year-old daughter upon capture rather than see her returned to slavery.)

Dr. Derrick Spires, author of The Practice of Citizenship: Black Politics and Print Culture, describes this difference in sentimentality as a way of not necessarily bridging the gap between Harper and white audiences, but to expose it: "she challenges them to recognize that this feeling is insufficient or even beside the point."

Derrick Spires on Twitter

In 1854, abolitionist writer Charlotte Forten wrote in her journal, "I believe in resistance to tyrants, and would fight for liberty until death." Dr. Derrick Spires draws an important connection between the phrase "liberty until death" and Patrick Henry's famous line, "Give me liberty or give me death!" as "a sense of desperation, betrayal, and resolution among writers in the late 1850s." Liberty and death, he argues, did not have to be mutually exclusive, and in fact many abolitionists and slaves accepted that taking their freedom with their own hands would mean their death. The abolition of slavery was beginning to feel like a distant dream.

This line of thought helps to explain such tragedies as the arrest of Margaret Garner, who killed her two-year-old daughter upon capture by slave catchers to save her from a life of slavery. Garner's defense lawyer fought to have her tried for murder despite the possibility of her being executed if found guilty because this would at least imply her legal status as a human being, but ultimately she was tried and convicted of destruction of property. As for her slain daughter, Garner rejected the options of liberty or death, and chose to end her life in freedom - in liberty until death.

Margaret Garner (c. 1856) was an enslaved woman, appearing of mixed race and believed to be the child of an enslaver. She was born in Kentucky. In 1849, she was married to another enslaved person, Robert Garner. That same year, the plantation was sold along with all of the enslaved people to another family member. Margaret had her first child in early 1850.

Three of Margaret's later children were described also as appearing of mixed race, and each were born seven months after a child born to her enslaver, suggesting these children were the results of rape.

On January 28th, 1856, Robert and a pregnant Margaret attempted an escape with many other enslaved families. Robert had stolen his master's sleigh and gun. It was said to be the coldest winter in 60 years, and the Ohio River had frozen. The families crossed the ice just west of Covington, Kentucky at daybreak and escaped to Cincinnati. While many families reached safehouses along the way, the Garner group was pressed to continue further west of the city, where many freed Blacks lived. Unfortunately, mercenaries and U.S. marshals found the Garners in the home they were awaiting nightfall in. They surrounded the property and stormed the house.

During the struggle, Margaret killed her two-year-old daughter with a butcher knife. She was preparing to do the same to the others and herself, rather than see her children returned to enslavement, but was subdued before she could carry this out. The group was taken to jail, and the trial lasted two weeks. The judge deliberated for another two weeks.

The core issue was whether to try the Garners as persons with the murder of their daughter or as property under the Fugitive Slave Law. Over a thousand people turned out each day to watch the proceedings. Abolitionists spoke at the trial, suggesting the mixed race of her children were evidence of the violence enslaved women undergo. Mixed race enslaved people were often treated with even greater violence and abuse as they were 'proof' of the adultery of the enslaver, and Margaret was merely trying to protect her children from the violent life she had known. The judge eventually ruled that the Fugitive Slave Act superseded other charges.

Margaret, her husband, and their youngest daughter were forced back into enslavement. When Ohio authorities finally obtained an extradition warrant to try Margaret for her daughter's murder, she could not be located, as her captor kept moving her between cities in Kentucky.

In 1856, the Garners were being transported on a steamboat when it collided with another boat. Margaret and her baby daughter were thrown overboard and the child drowned. Margaret expressed her happiness at this, saying she had tried to drown herself as well. She and her husband remained in Arkansas for a time, before being sent to another captor in New Orleans.

In Memoriam: Don’t forget about Toni Morrison, the Librettist

(August 7, 2019). Few people – male or female – have captured the African experience in America through their art better than the late Toni Morrison.

And certainly even fewer musicians have done so.

Toni Morrison (1931-2019)

So when I heard that the great novelist, essayist and educator Morrison, 88, had passed away on Monday, August 5, my first thought was how great a loss America had…