"Celia, A Slave" is a very controversial story of a young female slave who murdered her master then burned his body on June 23, 1855. This issue took place in Missouri during a period where Kansas has a debate whether the union is a free or slave state. Celia plays a big role in how society views this debate of slavery. Different people have opposing views on slavery and some see the justification on the trial. In this story, it emphasizes a lot in the social, political, and sexual ramification of this dark past in American history. The social ramification keeps going to this day. Even though Celia was raped she was given her legal right as a white person would. “Celia’s trial, its causes, and consequences, confront us with the hard daily …show more content…
The political ramification was a big part of this trail. ”The legal principle that a slave could, in extreme circumstance, resort to the use of deadly force to protect her life was also one that had been upheld in a number of southern state court decisions."(The trail. p.102) Celia did not mean to kill him but to only hurt him, if he got mad if she denied him. The jury didn’t think of that way. In the 1850s the state of miss our had a law against rape and allowing a woman to use deadly force to protect herself from rape, even homicide was justified. Those Laws were never applied to Celia because she was a slave. The political aspect of this was she was not treated equally. Her verdict was an injustice, her actions were justified. Even now there has been cases that haven’t been trailed like Celia's only because of their …show more content…
When Celia first came to the Newson farm was when she was fourteen. On that trip home, she is raped by Newson and from that “life for Celia would entail continual sexual exploitation by her master”(The Crime p.25) Celia was just fourteen, by the time she was had given birth to two children to be fathered by Newson but when she was pregnant with her third not knowing if its Newson or George a slave that she had made a strong relationship with Celia would deny Newson sexual desire. Celia pled with Newson directly to leave her alone using her pregnancy as an excuse. All of her pleads for him to leave her are ignore to the belief "as her master he considers sexual relation with her his privilege" (The Crime. p.33) As Newson went that night of the crime and the only thing she did what she had to do to defend herself. She was scared that she ended Newson's life. She confesses how and why she killed Newson, but the jury nor the community on June 25, 1855, the case The State of Missouri vs. Celia a Slave began but it was a hard trial do its neighboring state of Kansas ruling is the union is a free or slave
In the summer of 1855, a slave named Celia committed a crime that would test the laws and precedents placed on slaves in Missouri during this time period. Celia was only fourteen when purchased by a slave owner, Robert Newsom in 1850. Five years after being purchased, she murdered her owner in self-defense because he tried to rape her. Throughout the 1800’s, slaves had few rights, if any at all. Celia, A Slave brings up many questions about these rights because of the controversy surrounding a black woman and her white owner. Many of these questions were also sparked because of the brutal crime Celia committed.
Melton McLaurin’s book Celia, A Slave is the account of the trial, conviction, and execution of a female slave for the murder of her “master” Robert Newsom in 1855. The author uses evidence compiled through studying documents from Callaway County, Missouri and the surrounding area during the middle of the Nineteenth Century. Although much of what can be determine about this event is merely speculation, McLaurin proposes arguments for the different motives that contribute to the way in which many of the events unfold. Now throughout the book the “main characters”, being Celia, her lawyer Jameson, and the judge William Hall, are all faced with moral decisions that affect the lives of two different people.
our generation of the horrific trades of slavery. The story of Celia is an emblem of the racial
Released in 1993, Celia, A Slave was written as a true story of a young slaved girl who broke some of the most unbreakable of the rules that applied to slaves which took more abuse than most of her peers. The work as a whole
Melton McLaurin vividly describes the life of a sexually abused slave who fought back in the non-fictional memoir titled Celia, A Slave. As the story began, the 1800s were impassioned with one civil disagreement between two sides of the United States—whether the nation should legally end or perpetuate human enslavement (16). Slavery was particularly and heavily supported by the citizens of the Calloway County, the home of Robert Newsom (19). The proof of increased crop production through slave labor convinced Newsom to begin his investment in black slaves (20). Having an increased number of farmhands allowed Newsom more time for relaxation and a higher social status. Soon, after understanding the ease of obtaining human property, Newsom
Indeed there were major differences in both legal and social status between whites and blacks during the Antebellum period. McLaurin in fact states “Thus the six men who first heard evidence that Celia had killed Robert Newsom were, in practically every respect, his peer.” (McLaurin 49). Which indicates that Celia was not going to have a fair trial because all jurors were white and had accumulated some kind of wealth just like Robert Newsom. Later this reaffirms the legal dilemma Celia had to go through with an all-white member jury that already did not see her as their peer. Perhaps most notably was Judge Hall who made many attempts not to give Celia at least a fair trial, McLaurin mentions “the judge ordered that the phrase “to keep him from having sexual intercourse with her” be stricken.” (McLaurin 102). One reason why judge Hall could had made such decision is that at the time Missouri had a law that any sexual advances towards slave women
The book Celia A Slave Melton McLaurin is telling us what happened to a slave owner and a slave that he brought. This story goes into details on the day of June 23,1855 about how a female slave that murdered her master and how she tried to cover it up. This story took place not far from Jefferson City in Calloway Country here in Missouri when around this time there were still debates over what state is going to be free and what states is going to be a slave one. As you’re reading the book you will see how race relations of that period was very … McLaurin talks in great details about the trail, the political climate of the time of the trail, and the experiences of a slave told in Celia view, and the antebellum time period.
In Celia, a Slave, written by Melton A. McLaurin, the relationships of race, gender, sexuality, power, law, and slavery in the antebellum South is revealed by Celia’s case. In antebellum South, many things dictated a person’s worth, but the race of a person was the number one factor. If a person was of a race other than Caucasian, such as being Black, then he or she would live in the United States as one of two classifications: slave or freed slave. Of these two classifications, both were thought as being subpar humans when compared to white citizens. Due to these beliefs regarding Blacks, slave and free, Blacks themselves were unable to protect themselves from slave masters and in most legal standings (McLaurin 137). This means that Blacks did not have the same citizenship as white people because a slave was not a citizen in the eyes of the law but the human property of his or her master. Gender is the second idea that dictated a person’s worth and character. Males, white particularly, always held more power and sexual control over the women of the antebellum South. White women, when married, became the legal property of her husband (139). Even if a woman was not married, then she was still considered the property of her father and under his protection until she was given away. For example, Virginia Waynescot and Mary Newsome both lived with their father, Robert Newsome (10-11). By living with their father, the two daughters basically handed over their power because Robert
“Incidents in the Life of a Slave” by Harriet Jacobs is an autobiographical narrative. It gives us a look inside in how the lives of slave women were, the troubles they faced and how they met them, especially the sexual abuses they suffered by their masters. She tells us how her master had the “right” to impregnate the slave and then that child would have to follow in its mother’s life as a slave. It took a lot of courage to stand
Celia, a Slave is the epitome of the relationship between slaves and their owners and also the slaves and other whites in the 1850’s. This is based on her interactions with her owner Robert Newsom and her reactions mainly with the community involved in her court case. These relationships affected more so the women slaves rather than the men slaves because of their weaker nature as perceived by the sexual differences of the time period between men and women in general. Slavery is questioned by the morals of the Northerners and some Southerners though it is common in the South so most Southerners reinforce the ideas of slavery with their own morals, believing slaves as meaningless because of their difference.
According to American history, prejudice is shown through the courtroom’s jury when making decisions to send the alleged African Americans to jail. On March 24, 1931, nine African American lives were jeopardized with the false accusations of rape that further scrutinizes the nation’s controversial look upon justice. Referring to Abigail Thernson and Henry Fetter when talking about The Scottsboro Trials it states, “Represented by unprepared out of date counsel who had no more than a half an hour consult
In a time period when women were considered inferior, as were blacks, it was unimaginable the horrors a black woman in the south had to endure during this period. African women were slaves and subject to the many horrors that come along with being in bondage, but because they were also women, they were subject to the cruelties of men who look down on women as inferior simply because of their sex. The sexual exploitation of these females often lead to the women fathering children of their white masters. Black women were also prohibited from defending themselves against any type of abuse, including sexual, at the hands of white men. If a slave attempted to defend herself she was often subjected to further beatings from the master. The black female was forced into sexual relationships for the slave master’s pleasure and profit. By doing this it was the slave owner ways of helping his slave population grow.
This trial did not just impact the life of the boys it impacted the life of others, after this trial they looked at how they did all these cases. As the time went on there became more and more fair trails, less biased jury and judges. But it does still exist, racism in court many years later. But the trial from Scottsboro, Alabama with Olen Montgomery, Clarence Norris, Haywood Patterson, Ozie Powell, Willie Roberson, Charles Weems, Eugene Williams, Andy Wright, and Roy Wright all falsely accused of raping Ruby Bates and Victoria Price was a prodigious part of the way they treated trails against African
Harriet Jacobs, a black woman who escapes slavery, illustrates in her biography Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl (1861) that death is preferable to life as a slave due to the unbearable degradation of being regarded as property, the inevitable destruction of slave children’s innocence, and the emotional and physical pain inflicted by slave masters. Through numerous rhetorical strategies such as allusion, comparison, tone, irony, and paradoxical expression, she recounts her personal tragedies with brutal honesty. Jacobs’s purpose is to combat the deceptive positive portrayals of slavery spread by southern slave holders through revealing the true magnitude of its horrors. Her intended audience is uninvolved northerners, especially women, and she develops a personal and emotionally charged relationship with them.
the prisoners were lucky enough to escape the being lynched when they were moved into Scottsboro. In this trial, nine young, black boys were charged with the rape of two white girls while on a train. This case was a major source of controversy in the 1930’s. “Despite testimony by doctors who had examined the women that no rape had occurred, the all- white jury convicted the nine, and all but the youngest, who was 12 years old were sentenced to death” (“Scottsboro”). The boys’ lawyer, Samuel Leibowitz, did not even get assigned to the case until the first day of the trial. “If he could show a jury that these nine boys were innocent, as the record indicated, the jury would surely free them. To Leibowitz, that was simple!” (Chalmers 35). However, it was not that simple. Many white citizens would not change their minds about