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A Slave Mother's Fury

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A Slave Mother’s Fury: The Story of Margaret Garner In 1793, The United States government issued The Fugitive Slave Act which mandated the return of runaway slaves back to their original slave owners if they were caught. Modified in 1850 with even stricter punishments and consequences even for those who hid runaways, these laws shined a light on an ambiguous plan that the government devised to keep African Americans enslaved without any mere hope of ever becoming free. While in effect, a multitude of blacks were captured in Northern states and sent back to Southern slave states and in some cases, a vast number of free blacks were captured. Life under these laws made African Americans uneasy about the attempts of running away but many were equally desperate to escape the horrors of the “Peculiar Institution.” One cold morning on January 28, 1856, twenty-two year old Margaret Garner escaped from Kentucky to Ohio with her family. Once they were captured, Margaret made the ultimate decision: to slay the lives of her four young children and herself. Because she was caught in time, Margaret only succeeded in murdering one, her two year old daughter Mary. Margaret was arrested and tried, not for the murder of her daughter, but was found guilty of running away under the Fugitive Slave Law and was sold, with her husband and youngest daughter who later drowned enroute, to a plantation in Louisiana and eventually ending in Mississippi where she died from Typhoid

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