Modern Medea - A Family Story of Slavery and Child-Murder from the Old South (Paperback)

The first in-depth historical account of the events that inspired Toni Morrison's novel Beloved.

In the middle of a frigid Sunday night in January 1856, a twenty-two-year-old Kentucky slave named Margaret Garner gathered up her family and raced north, toward Cincinnati and freedom. But Margaret's master followed just hours behind and soon had the fugitives surrounded. Thinking all was lost, Margaret seized a butcher knife and nearly decapitated her two-year-old daughter, crying out that she would rather see her children dead than returned to slavery. She was turning on her other three children when slave catchers burst in and subdued her.

Margaret Garner's child-murder electrified the United States, inspiring the longest, most spectacular fugitive-slave trial in history. Abolitionists and slaveholders fought over the meaning of the murder, and the case came to symbolize the ills of the Union in those last dark decades before the Civil War. Newspaper columnists, poets, and dramatists raced to interpret Margaret's deeds, but by the century's end they were all but forgotten. Steven Weisenburger is the first scholar to delve into this astonishing story in more than a century. Weisenburger integrates his innovative archival discoveries into a dramatic narrative that paints a nuanced portrait of the not-so-genteel Southern culture of slavery and its destructive effect on all who lived in and with it.

General

Imprint:	Farrar, Strauss & Giroux-3pl
Country of origin:	United States
Release date:	September 1999
First published:	September 1999
Authors:	Steven Weisenburger
Dimensions:	215 x 141 x 24mm (L x W x T)
Format:	Paperback - Trade
Pages:	368
ISBN-13:	978-0-8090-6954-5
Categories:	Books > Humanities > History > World history > 1750 to 1900 Books > Humanities > History > American history > General Books > Humanities > History > History of specific subjects > Social & cultural history Books > Social sciences > Sociology, social studies > Ethnic studies > Black studies Books > Social sciences > Politics & government > Political control & freedoms > Slavery & emancipation Books > History > American history > General Books > History > History of specific subjects > Social & cultural history Books > History > World history > 1750 to 1900
LSN:	0-8090-6954-7
Barcode:	9780809069545

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