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In 1856, an enslaved woman named Margaret Garner escaped from Kentucky into Ohio with her family. When slave catchers cornered them, she killed her two-year-old daughter rather than let her be returned to slavery. Toni Morrison based her novel Beloved (1987) on Garner's story.

Toni Morrison

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Morrison came across the story in 1974, in an 1856 newspaper article she found while editing The Black Book, a collection of documents on African American history. Garner and her family had crossed the frozen Ohio River to Cincinnati. At her trial, abolitionists wanted her charged with murder in Ohio, which would have treated her as a person in law; the court instead treated her as property under the Fugitive Slave Act and returned her to her enslaver. She was taken south and died of typhoid in 1858, still enslaved. Morrison kept the central event and invented the rest: her character Sethe lives in Ohio after the Civil War, haunted by the daughter she killed. Beloved won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1988.

Türkçe oku
1856'da köle olarak yaşayan Margaret Garner, ailesiyle birlikte Kentucky'den Ohio'ya kaçtı. Köle avcıları onları sıkıştırınca, iki yaşındaki kızı yeniden köle olmasın diye onu öldürdü. Toni Morrison, 1987 tarihli Sevilen (Beloved) romanını Garner'ın hikâyesine dayandırdı.

Morrison bu hikâyeye 1974'te, Afro-Amerikan tarihine ait belgeleri topladığı The Black Book'u hazırlarken bulduğu 1856 tarihli bir gazete yazısında rastladı. Garner ve ailesi donmuş Ohio Nehri'ni geçerek Cincinnati'ye ulaşmıştı. Kölelik karşıtları, Garner'ın Ohio'da cinayetten yargılanmasını istiyordu; bu, onu hukuken bir insan olarak tanımak demekti. Mahkeme ise onu Kaçak Köle Yasası'na göre bir mülk saydı ve sahibine iade etti. Güneye götürülen Garner, 1858'de hâlâ köleyken tifodan öldü. Morrison asıl olayı korudu, gerisini kurguladı: romanın kahramanı Sethe, İç Savaş'tan sonra Ohio'da, öldürdüğü kızının hayaletiyle yaşar. Sevilen, 1988'de Pulitzer Kurmaca Ödülü'nü kazandı.

Sources and further reading

Background reading: Beloved (novel)
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