Talk:Margaret Garner

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Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment[edit]

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Untitled[edit]

This is an important addition to this article.

The 1856 trial of Margaret Garner was important in its time because it challenged the notion of slaves as property vs. slaves as human. If slaves were property, then the charge against Margaret Garner, for killing her daughter could at most be for destruction of property - not for murder, because slaves were not "human."

Her owner, who may have also been the biological father of the daughter, was so angered that he wanted the charge to be murder. He was interested in having Margaret Garner put to death under a murder conviction.

The problem was this, if she was considered "human" and charged with murder, there would be a precedent set regarding the status of all slaves in the country. She was in the end charged with destruction of property and NOT murder, because US law in many states at that time did not recognize slaves as human, and the country at that time, did not want to regard African slaves as human beings. That is a crucial part of the story that is missing!

The closest analogy to our time is one regarding the value of a loved family pet. In light of the problem of compensation and damages for animals that died (for example) as a result of tainted pet food, if a pet is elevated to the status of "family" vs. "property" pet owners could sue for damages in the millions of dollars as they would if a child died from ingesting bad food or having a medical procedure that resulted in death. This is an issue that several states grapple with today, some labeling animals with new terminology separating "property" from the "sentient beings" they are, but with a lower status than being "human".

The ramifications of this could require veterinarians and other animal care givers to need greater liability insurance like human medical doctors need, and would inflate the costs of services to animals to pay for this insurance, among other things.

The legal part of this story is also depicted within the Operatic version of the story Margaret Garner, by playwright Toni Morrison.

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