Celia, a Slave

Melton A. McLaurin

Publication Year: 1991

<DIV>Illuminating the moral dilemmas that lie at the heart of a slaveholding society, this book tells the story of a young slave who was sexually exploited by her master and ultimately executed for his murder.<p>Celia was only fourteen years old when she was acquired by John Newsom, an aging widower and one of the most prosperous and respected citizens of Callaway County, Missouri. The pattern of sexual abuse that would mark their entire relationship began almost immediately. After purchasing Celia in a neighboring county, Newsom raped her on the journey back to his farm. He then established her in a small cabin near his house and visited her regularly (most likely with the knowledge of the son and two daughters who lived with him). Over the next five years, Celia bore Newsom two children; meanwhile, she became involved with a slave named George and resolved at his insistence to end the relationship with her master. When Newsom refused, Celia one night struck him fatally with a club and disposed of his body in her fireplace.<p>Her act quickly discovered, Celia was brought to trial. She received a surprisingly vigorous defense from her court-appointed attorneys, who built their case on a state law allowing women the use of deadly force to defend their honor. Nevertheless, the court upheld the tenets of a white social order that wielded almost total control over the lives of slaves. Celia was found guilty and hanged.<p>Melton A. McLaurin uses Celia's story to reveal the tensions that strained the fabric of antebellum southern society. Celia's case demonstrates how one master's abuse of power over a single slave forced whites to make moral decisions about the nature of slavery. McLaurin focuses sharply on the role of gender, exploring the degree to which female slaves were sexually exploited, the conditions that often prevented white women from stopping such abuse, and the inability of male slaves to defend slave women. Setting the case in the context of the 1850s slavery debates, he also probes the manner in which the legal system was used to justify slavery. By granting slaves certain statutory rights (which were usually rendered meaningless by the customary prerogatives of masters), southerners could argue that they observed moral restraint in the operations of their peculiar institution.<p>An important addition to our understanding of the pre-Civil War era, <i>Celia, A Slave</i> is also an intensely compelling narrative of one woman pushed beyond the limits of her endurance by a system that denied her humanity at the most basic level.</DIV>

Published by: University of Georgia Press

Contents
Search Inside This Book
Book Details

Cover

pdf icon Download PDF (233.7 KB)

pdf icon Download PDF (82.2 KB)
pp. v-

Acknowledgments

pdf icon Download PDF (86.2 KB)
pp. vii-

As an academic discipline, history possesses an inherent tension, one that every historian confronts. On the one hand, history is the study of the recorded past, of data, of facts. At times the record is dry and dull, at others, as with the case examined in this work, the record holds the power to ...

Introduction

pdf icon Download PDF (170.5 KB)
pp. ix-xi

... to represent the women's movement; Frederick Douglass and William Lloyd Garrison the abolitionists; Dorothea Dix reform in the treatment of the criminal and the insane; Edmund Ruffin and William Loundes Yancey a fierce southern nationalism based upon the defense and perpetuation ...

Chapter One: BEGINNINGS

pdf icon Download PDF (680.4 KB)
pp. 1-13

... the public record indicated that Robert Newsom was anything other than what he seemed—a man who had labored hard and endured much for the measure of prosperity he had achieved; a good father who continued to contribute to the welfare of his children, all now themselves adults; a man ...

Chapter Two: THE CRIME

pdf icon Download PDF (958.0 KB)
pp. 14-32

... the time that Robert Newsom was beginning his struggle to create a new life for his family in the Missouri wilderness, the nation was determining whether, and under what conditions, Missouri could be admitted to the Union. Since the conclusion of the War of 1812, several economic and social ...

Chapter Three: INQUISITION

pdf icon Download PDF (1.0 MB)
pp. 33-52

... amiss, prompted the daughters to begin to search for him. Virginia looked first along "all the paths and walks and every place for him" without success. Next she searched along the creek, fearing that Newsom had fallen into the creek and drowned. The women hunted for Robert Newsom in the ...

Chapter Four: BACKDROP

pdf icon Download PDF (784.0 KB)
pp. 53-67

... her fate were being drawn into yet another emotionally charged debate over slavery and its future in the neighboring Kansas Territory. As in 1820 and 1850, the debate raged across the nation, its volume and intensity reaching levels that frightened many who had previously paid scant ...

Chapter Five: THE TRIAL

pdf icon Download PDF (1.0 MB)
pp. 68-87

... Yale. After college, in 1840 Hall accompanied his father's family on yet another move, this time to Randolph County, Missouri. There he studied law and was admitted to the bar in 1841. He opened a practice in Huntsville, which he later moved to Fayette. The young and ambitious attorney ...

Chapter Six: THE VERDICT

pdf icon Download PDF (834.2 KB)
pp. 88-103

... jury. It also provided that either side could object to the proposed jury instructions of the other. The judge was at liberty to accept requested instructions either in whole or in part, or he could himself instruct the jury without regard to the requests of either the prosecution or the defense. Thus, ...

Chapter Seven: FINAL DISPOSITION

pdf icon Download PDF (643.3 KB)
pp. 104-115

... the appeal. In whatever language the appeal was couched, Judge Hall's failure to issue a stay of execution order rendered it of no avail unless the supreme court acted quickly. As the defense waited for an answer from the supreme court, Celia's execution date drew nearer. By early November it ...

Chapter Eight: CONCLUSIONS

pdf icon Download PDF (358.5 KB)
pp. 116-122

... theme, so discernible in slave narratives, is accompanied by yet another—"these captive women's efforts to resist the misappropriation and to maintain the integrity of their own sexuality."¹ Although the brief and tragic life of Celia, a slave, cannot provide a comprehensive theory with which ...

E-ISBN-13: 9780820341590
E-ISBN-10: 0820341592
Print-ISBN-13: 9780820313528
Print-ISBN-10: 0820313521

Page Count: 160
Publication Year: 1991