Similarities Between Frederick Douglass And Margaret Garner

The second episode of The African Americans: Many Rivers to Cross describes the further devolution of slavery in the southern part of the United States, as well as the gradual abolition of it in the north. Threatened by abolitionists gaining traction in the north, southern powers created hurdles for masters to free their slaves. In combination with the invention of the cotton gin, king cotton came to rule the south and drove plantation owners into the largest slave trade in history, known as the Second Middle Passage. During this time, some slaves became seen heroes among their peers. Two examples are Frederick Douglass and Margaret Garner, albeit their stories were not a mirror image, they were still incredibly telling of what slaves faced

She lived on a plantation near the northern border of Kentucky. This border also served as the boundary of slavery, as the state further north was the free state of Ohio. In January of 1856, Garner’s family made a break for the state line, with the border being a natural one: the Ohio River. Since it was winter, the river was completely frozen over, but was still treacherous and risky to cross on foot. The family successfully made it to Cincinnati, Ohio, but were soon found out by U.S. Marshals empowered by the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850. The Marshals surrounded the house the family was holed up in. Margaret Garner faced a choice to either let herself and her children be taken back into slavery, or not. When the Marshals broke into the house, they discovered that Margaret had slit her own daughters throat and was on her way to killing her other two sons, and eventually, herself. That was what she decided to do rather than go back to the living hell that slavery was. Slavery proponents in the south saw her as subhuman, willing to murder her own offspring, but abolitionists in the north saw it as a mother trying to save her children from enduring slavery, especially her daughter. Because the Fugitive Slave Act still considered escaped slaves in the free north, Margaret was only considered property and could not be tried for murder. On the ship, back to her owner’s plantation, Margaret dropped her infant child into the icy river from the deck of the steamship, resulting in the baby’s drowning. No matter how drastic these actions may seem, they were what Margaret Garner decided would be better than her children growing up as slaves and facing the immense hardship and oppression she