Celia: A Slave by Melton

¶ … Celia: A Slave by Melton a. McLaurin. Specifically it will contain a book review of the book. Slavery is one of the worst issues in American history, leaving behind lingering biases and misunderstandings even today. Even today, it is hard to understand how one person could keep another in bondage, and this book opens up that topic and more for discussion.

The book follows Ceilia's life until she was executed for murdering her master, a detailed look into American justice and procedure. She was just a teen, only fourteen, when she came to the Newsome household, but she seemed old enough for Robert Newsom to have sex with, because he raped her right after he brought her home. The author notes, "Whatever Newsom's thoughts about the matter, the sexual nature of the relationship between master and slave, once established, would never change" (McLaurin 1991, 21). Celia had little choice in the matter, Newsom held all the cards when it came to the relationship. The author continues, "Faced with sexual exploitation by a white male, especially an owner, a female slave had few options but to submit" (McLaurin 1991, 26). Celia, pregnant and in love with someone else, asked Newsom to stop his sexual advances, and when he did not, she murdered him and disposed of his body in her fireplace.

Her trial and subsequent execution form the backbone of this book. During her trial, her defense attorney's jury instructions state "that Celia had the legal right to use force to repel her master's sexual advances" (McLaurin 1991, 89) in order to protect herself from the "imminent danger of forced sexual intercourse" (McLaurin 1991, 90). In reality, she was attempting to protect her unborn child, as well, but the jury convicted her anyway, and she lost her appeal, she was executed on December 21, 1855. Her trial points out the beliefs and values of American society at the time. Located in Missouri, the state had witnessed a slave rebellion only a few years before, people were frightened of slaves, and there was a strong anti-slavery force at work in the state as well, debating the admittance of Kansas into the Union. According to the statutes of the time, Celia was Newsom's property, and he could do just about anything he liked with her.

The trial also illustrates Celia's humanity, in that her attorney's presented her as a wronged woman, who had the right to save herself, in effect, comparing her with any white woman in the same circumstances. Unfortunately, the court and jury did not see it that way. The humane (and correct) thing to do would be to have acquitted her in the name of self-defense. She had endured Newsom and his advances since she was a child, and it was morally wrong. However, there was no humanity in the treatment of slaves, and this trial only illustrates that all too well. Justice was not done in that courtroom, and that says something about justice for blacks during the time of slavery. The American justice system treated blacks differently than whites, and it took almost an eon for that to really change.

McLaurin states in the beginning of his book, "The life of Celia demonstrates how slavery placed individuals, black and white, in specific situations that forced them to make and to act upon personal decisions of a fundamentally moral nature" (McLaurin 1991, xi). The American policy at the time supported slavery, and even allowed slave and non-slave states to join the Union in equal numbers. Most Northerners did not support slavery, but most Southerners did, and the American government managed to stay neutral by allowing states to join the Union in equal numbers, until the Civil War broke out. Of course, the Civil War freed the slaves, but they were certainly not free and equal in the South. The American policy, even after the war, did not allow the same freedoms, and even if it did, the Southerners created their own policies with the Jim Crow laws that affected blacks.

Celia's trial is a direct result of that American policy of the time, which allowed blacks to be owned as slaves, and even supported extending those rights to certain new states. How did it reconcile itself? It reconciled itself with the belief, held by many, that blacks were "lower" than whites in every way, and that they were not as capable or as knowledgeable. Some people thought they were like children, while others thought they were like animals. As long as they viewed them this way, they were less than human, and so, they did not have to be treated in a humane manner.