Margaret Garner

Margaret Garner was a slave in pre-Civil War America notorious for killing her two year old daughter with a butcher knife, rather than see the child returned to slavery.

Margaret was not tried for murder, but was forced to return to a slave state along with her youngest child, and a daughter aged about nine months. The Liberator reported on March 11, 1856 that the Steamboat Lewis, on which the Garners were traveling, began to sink and that Margaret and her baby daughter were thrown overboard when another boat coming to their rescue hit the Lewis. Sadly, the baby was drowned. It was reported that Margaret was happy that her baby had died and that she would try to drown herself.

Margaret married one of her fellow slaves, a man named Robert Garner, in 1849. The Garner's first child, a boy named Thomas, was born early in 1850. But before he was born, in December of 1849, the plantation was sold, along with all the slaves, to Archibald K. Gaines, brother of John P. Gaines the 3rd Governor of the Oregon Territory.

Three of Margaret's later children (Samuel, Mary, and Priscilla) were described as Mulattoes; each were born five to seven months after a child born to Archibald K. Gaines and his wife. These light-skinned children were likely the children of A.K. Gaines, the only adult white male at Mapplewood. The timing suggests they were each conceived after his wife had become pregnant and was unavailable to him.

Sources:

• http://listverse.com/2007/09/17/top-10-famous-slaves/
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margaret_Garner