In East Lansing, Michigan, the historical narrative of Margaret Morgan, a woman born into slavery in Maryland, unfolds dramatically. For five years, Morgan had been living as a free individual with her husband and children in Pennsylvania, a state that opposed slavery. However, in the chilling year of 1837, their freedom was abruptly interrupted. Edward Prigg, acting as a slave catcher, forcibly seized them one rainy, sleet-filled night and transported them away in an exposed wagon, with little regard for their inadequate clothing.
The grim episode of the Morgan family reached the legal zenith of the U.S. Supreme Court in Prigg v. Pennsylvania. The landmark case ruled in 1842 that the deeply enshrined system of slavery was so integral to the nation’s framework that the rights of slave owners could not be curtailed. This decision is an important historical precedent about slavery, referenced over 7,000 times within the annals of American legal history, as identified by the Citing Slavery Project conducted by Michigan State University.
According to a biography curated by the Archives of Maryland, Morgan’s lineage traces back to parents who were servants under the ownership of John Ashmore. However, it is likely that they gained emancipation before Morgan’s birth since neither they nor she were listed as his property in his estate records. Eventually, Morgan married Jerry Morgan, a man of free status, and the couple settled in Pennsylvania in 1832, where they expanded their family.
Margaret Ashmore, asserting a claim to Morgan, employed Prigg to act on her behalf under the federal Fugitive Slave Act, a law that didn’t necessitate proof of ownership when reclaiming escaped slaves. Despite the legal requisites set by Pennsylvania, Prigg chose to circumvent these and forcibly took Morgan and her children back across the Mason-Dixon Line. He faced state charges for kidnapping in 1839 but the Supreme Court ultimately vindicated him, invalidating Pennsylvania’s anti-slavery statute.
Jerry Morgan, husband to Margaret, was released by Prigg and his associates during the abduction of his family. Tragically, in his desperate attempt to appeal to the governor of Pennsylvania for his family’s liberation, he met his end by drowning in a river, as chronicled by historical archives.
The fate of Margaret Morgan and her children remains a solemn mystery. Archive records speculate that they may have been sold by Margaret Ashmore, but no further evidence of their lives has surfaced post-abduction.
