Celia, A Slave
The book by Malton A. McLaurin is an inquiry of the probationary and killing of a slave Celie. The slave is accused of killing her master and then scorching his body in her inglenook.[1] The author uses this case to bring out the argument of how sexual role and cultural subjugation make subdued women feel entirely helpless to defend themselves against sexual harassment.[2] The book tries to show how moral ambiguity often caused by slavery is reconciled in courts and how the rulings alleviate whites’ crisis while confronted with issues of the same weight such as slavery.
Celia, A Slave
The introduction of this book focuses on the lives of people who are described as the lesser figures and uses them to show definite characteristics of the main issues that happen over a specific period.[3] The author contends that Celia’s story compromises an insight on the fact that individual and partisan aspects are never completely separate.[4] The case shows the injustices and hardships that still transpire in the United States; some go unpunished while at other times the innocent party ends up paying. It also shows that people are not always willing to see the whole story, they are just focused on what happened and then starts jumping to conclusions without trying to understand how and why it happened.
The book introduces the two crucial parties in Celia’s story, her master, Robert Newson, and her lawyer, John Jameson. The book expounds on the early history of Missouri and what it meant to own slaves, how it was beneficial. The times may have changed, but some aspects are still the same; there are the rich people, and there are the other people. However, slavery may have died off, but there are still other forms of injustices and biases that are still relevant to date.
Celia’s owner is her oppressor, he bought her at the age of 14 and kept on oppressing her over and over again. Oppression is a vice that is still prevalent in the United States; some people are oppressed or discriminated due to their social standards, race, or ethnicity. Chapter two of the book expounds on the state of Missouri and its significance to slavery. Slavery may have died out, but the country still has many vices. People suffer the same fate used to suffer. There are a lot of people who face harsh conditions, and yet they are not appreciated. Her master constantly oppresses Celia, and she gets two children by Newsom (McLauren 1999). The second half of chapter two gives a detailed account on how Celia becomes pregnant with a third baby and tries to break off her relations with her master but to no avail. Newsom continues to demand sex and Celia react by hitting him with a large stick and accidentally kills him. This act leads her to do something irrational because she does not want to be discovered and thus she burns him in her fireplace.
This issue makes her life harder after she confesses to killing him, there are suggestions that she did not act alone while other people argue that she did this as an act of revolt which is constant among slaves. People do not want to accept that she could have done it out of self-defense or that maybe she was not the only guilty party in this case. However, she refuses to implicate anyone in the murder. This chapter provides information about Celia’s indictment and offers an overview of previous slave revolts. There are cases of injustices whereby people are accused wrongly or whereby the public and the press constantly determine the path that a certain case will take.
The politics during Cilia’s incarceration may have also contributed to her going to jail. The author focuses on David Atchinson who ran for Senate; his efforts were to make Kansas a slave state and thus advocated for the vice that people were against. During Cilia’s trial, six witnesses take to the stand with some doctors confirming that the body found was that of Newsom and that it was impossible for Cilia to burn him on her own. Her lawyer tries to give her the best defense possible, but the court ends up with six witnesses testifying against her. The judge refuses most the instruction gives in Cilia’s favor and gives a guilty verdict. When her lawyer tries to request for a retrial by citing the judge’s mishandling of the case, the judge hands down a death sentence.[5] The author comes to a conclusion that defense was a radical concept and thus it may do more harm if justice is not the issue at the table.[6] The author argued that defense posed an immediate threat which had dire repercussions which meant that the defensive team could not make its case.[7] Justice is not a sure thing, and no matter how much people advocate for it, there are times where it will be overlooked. This case showed pieces of what it means to be a minority and the effects the system of justice can have on someone’s life.
Bibliography
McLauren, Melton Alonzo. Celia, A Slave. Harper Collins, 1999.
[1] Melton A McLauren, Celia, A Slave. (Harper Collins, 1999). 9.
[2] McLauren, Celia, A Slave.
[3] McLauren, Celia, A Slave.
[4] McLauren, Celia, A Slave.
[5] McLauren, Celia, A Slave.
[6] McLauren, Celia, A Slave.
[7] McLauren, Celia, A Slave.
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