Celia, a slave: analysis and historical context

¶ … sexual tyranny of slavery, as depicted in Celia: A slave

Celia: A slave by Melton Mclaurin is the true story of an enslaved woman who was repeatedly raped by her master. She eventually murdered her attacker and was executed for her alleged crime of defending herself while she was pregnant. The details of Celia's case stood as a fundamental challenge to the lies advocates of slavery put forth in defense of their indefensible cause -- they said that slavery was a benign institution that protected slaves, and also stated that the main risk of sexual misconduct posed by white-black relations was the rape of white women. Celia's case showed that the reality was that black women were the most likely victims of rape in the antebellum south and west, at the hands of white owners.

Knowledge of Celia's master is more detailed than that of Celia herself. Celia, like so many slaves, had no last name. She was purchased by Robert Newsom as a house slave, as his wife was recently deceased. Soon after buying Celia, Newsom raped the fourteen-year-old girl. In deference to her role in the household, Newsom gave Celia a special house. He had two daughters, who were presumably protected virgins, in accordance with the ideology of the South. But the chivalry Newsom would expect white Southerners to extend to his daughters he did not extend to Celia, although his treatment of her seems to indicate he did feel some affection for her. Melton Mclaurin calls the girl slave Newsom's "replacement for a wife" (Mclaurin 19).

Newsom was born in Virginia but had moved to Missouri, which was the center of anti-slavery debates given the question of westward expansion and admitting new state into the Union as either slave or free was such a contentious issue. The fact that he did not physically beat Celia, but effectively used her as his sexual partner under compulsion starkly highlighted the inequalities and immorality inherent in the slavery system, even for house slaves and even for women.

Celia, unbeknownst to Newsom, began to have a consensual relationship with a fellow slave named George. George understandably hated the relationship enforced upon Celia by her master and begged her to stop it. When Celia became pregnant she asked Newsom to leave her alone, pleading illness. Newsom did not desist. Celia murdered him in self-defense when he tried to rape her again. Celia stated that she never intended to kill Newsom when she struck him with a club to keep him back. She warned him not to make his advances. However, Newsom was an old man and was quickly killed by the blow. Celia tried to get rid of the evidence by burning his remains fireplace, but was easily discovered, reflecting the lack of premeditation in her spontaneous action.

After being charged with the crime, a slave-owner yet eloquent prominent trial attorney James Jameson was appointed to defend Celia, partially to silence critics on both sides of the issue in Missouri. Jameson defended his client's right to resist her master's advances based upon statues designed only to apply to assaulted white women and another statute that allowed slaves to fight back with deadly force to spare their own lives. The judge objected to this defense and told the jury to ignore this argument, effectively sealing Celia's fate to be executed. Because Celia was regarded as property, her master could dispose of her as he desired, and the only sexual crime that could be committed against the body of a female slave under the law was if another man trespassed upon the slave-owners' property.

The unique tyranny forced upon women as a result of slavery is manifest in Celia's case. Not even George seemed to understand it. As Melton Mclaurin points out, it is unclear how Celia could have possibly resisted her master's advances, despite George's demands. George asked her to make their master stop, but did not offer her any assistance. George expected her loyalty, as his lover, but because of the nature of Celia's position she could not give this to him, no matter how much she wished to do so. She wanted to be a good woman and fulfill the common cultural ideal of being a good wife and mother, but her position as her master's plaything prohibited her from marriage and a conventional, monogamous relationship of choice, which was the right of all white women.

The law extended white women protection, but not Celia, and she had no man to defend her. Her actions were desperate and murderous, but understandable in the eyes of most and had she been white the law would have protected rather than executed her. There was widespread acknowledgment of the commonness of rape amongst white masters but society still refused to treat slaves as 'equals' even though masters were clearly capable of being equally attracted to black women as they were to white women.