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SPEAKER_07: This August on Womanaca, we're taking a trip through history to discover the stories of Muses, women whose lives inspired work that's shaped our culture in small ways and large. Special thanks to this month's sponsor, Mercedes-Benz, whose own famous namesake was inspired by a young muse named Mercedes. Join us all month long for fascinating stories of women who are drivers of creativity, inspiration, and artistic expression. Before we get started with today's episode, a warning that it contains violent content that might not be suitable for young children. Hello, from Wonder Media Network, I'm Jenny Kaplan, and this is Womanaca. This month, we're talking about Muses, women who are drivers of creativity and inspiration. Today, we're talking about a woman whose desperate act became immortalized in Toni Morrison's award-winning novel, Beloved. Please welcome Margaret Garner. Margaret Garner, who was sometimes called Peggy, was born on June 4th, 1834, in Boonville, Kentucky at Maplewood Plantation. Both of Margaret's parents were enslaved, which meant that she too was enslaved from the day she was born. As a child, Margaret was put to work in the plantation's main house. Sometimes, she traveled with the family into Cincinnati, a free territory. When she was around 16 years old, she became romantically involved with a man named Robert Garner, who was enslaved on another plantation nearby. The two were soon married, and the next year, they welcomed their first child, Thomas. But trouble was on the horizon. Maplewood Plantation, where Margaret lived, was sold to the original owner's brother, Archibald. Over the next six years, Margaret gave birth to three more children. Because Margaret and Archibald's wife were often pregnant around the same time, Margaret was forced to serve as a wet nurse while weaning her own babies. Given the light skin of some of Margaret's children, there's significant speculation that Archibald fathered at least two of them. Because of the extreme power imbalance in their relationship, it's assumed that sexual encounters between them were not consensual. In the harsh winter of 1855, Margaret and her husband decided they would try to escape north to freedom. The Underground Railroad was at peak operation, and Margaret was pregnant with her fifth child. A plan was made. The family would cross the border into Cincinnati, Ohio. There, Margaret had a free cousin, Elijah Kite. On January 27th, 1856, Margaret, Robert, their four children, and Robert's parents crossed the frozen Ohio River and made it to Elijah's home. Within hours of their arrival, chaos descended. Archibald Gaines and a crew of federal marshals stormed in. Slave catchers had been tracking them. It was at this moment that Margaret made a decision that would be forever remembered in history. She couldn't live with the idea that her children would suffer the same way she had. She grabbed a butcher knife and slipped the throat of her youngest daughter, Mary. She'd started to stab her other children when she was discovered and imprisoned. Death, from her perspective, was better than returning to slavery. Cincinnati had a strong abolitionist community, and that community stepped up when it came time for Margaret's trial. A lawyer named John Jolief volunteered to represent them. He argued that because Margaret had made several trips to Cincinnati with the Barners, she was a free person. But the opposing side made the case that because Margaret had willingly returned to Kentucky, she had surrendered that free status. By the end of February, 1856, Margaret and Robert were returned to their enslavers. Their lawyer tried to prolong their freedom by convincing officials to try Margaret and Robert for murder and accessory to murder. Anything was better than returning to slavery. If they had been convicted of murder, it would have also set a precedent of trying them as people rather than property. But the Barners' enslavers caught wind of the plan and hid the couple across a network of plantations. Just as authorities were close to finding Margaret, she was sold to Archibald Gaines' brother. Authorities never found her, and she never stood a second trial. In 1858, Margaret died from typhoid. Though her life was short, her story has lived on through Tony Morrison's 1987 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel inspired by the events of Margaret's life, Beloved. The book was later adapted into a movie and was the inspiration for the 2005 opera entitled Margaret Garner. In a 2010 interview about the opera, Morrison told NPR, "'The interest is not the fact of slavery. "'The interest is what happens internally, emotionally, "'psychologically, when you are in fact enslaved, "'and what you do in order to transcend that circumstance.'" That really is what Margaret Garner reveals.
SPEAKER_02: It was the right thing to do, but she had no right to do it. You see, those women were not parents. People insisted that they have children, but they could not be mothers because they had nothing to say about the future of those children, where they went, they could make no decisions, they frequently couldn't even name them, so that they were denied humanity in a number of ways, but they were denied that role. I mean, it has nothing to do with history, it's what women do. And so she claimed something that she had no right to claim, which was the property of her children, and claimed it so finally that she decided that she could not only dictate their lives, but end them. And when one knows what the life, what their future would be, her decision is not that difficult to understand.
SPEAKER_07: All month, we're highlighting muses. For more information, check us out on Facebook and Instagram, at Womanaka Podcast. Special thanks to Liz Kaplan, my favorite sister and co-creator. Talk to you tomorrow.
SPEAKER_08: Bye.
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