The Case of Margaret Garner, Part I

 

Surviving gate-post at Maplewood Estate near Wilder, KY
Photo: P.Simcoe

Welcome. I want kick off this blog by beginning the story of Margaret Garner. Margaret's story was one that could have been written by the Greek tragedians. (In fact, painter T.S. Noble's 1867 work showing Margaret's deed is called The Modern Medea). In begins in 1856 in Richwood Station near today's Wilder, KY. Margaret was a slave owned by John Pollard Gaines, a wealthy landowner, and hero of the Mexican-American War. By all accounts, Gaines was not the cruelest of slave owners.....all things being relative, of course. When she was 7, Margaret was taken by Gaines across the Ohio River to help care for his youngest child, the infant Mary as he took care of business in Cincinnati. Little would John know that years later this trip to free soil would come back to haunt his family.

Photo: P. Simcoe

What was life like for a slave in Boone Co., KY in middle of the 19th century? According to author Steven Weisenburger, author of Modern Medea: "As Southern slavery went, life at Maplewood probably imposed relatively few hardships on young Margaret. Maplewood was Boone County's thirteenth-wealthiest plantation and among its leaders in hog production. The work of Gaines's dozen or so slaves varied seasonally and never required of them the grinding gang labor of Cotton South plantations" (p19). As a child, in all probability her main responsibilities would be to take care of the Gaines' youngest children and day-to-day work in the Maplewood kitchen.

Entrance to Maplewood, site of ongoing archaeological excavations
Photo: P. Simcoe

But as she grew up into her teens and later into her 20's, events would occur at Maplewood that would drive Margaret across the frozen Ohio River in the middle of the night. In this inaugural series of posts, I will visit the sites of Margaret's life, in person and in writing, and tell the story of what made her commit an act which scandalized people on both sides of the river, although for different reason. The act of infanticide.

Works Cited

            Weisenburger, Steven, Modern Medea: A Family Story of Slavery and Child-Murder from the               

                     Old South (Hill & Wang, New York), 1998.