History of slavery, and in particular, the experiences of enslaved women. We already had a chance to look at the case of Harriet Jacobs, one of the best remembered of the slave narratives. There, jacobs introduced us, if you will, to that dimension of slavery that is exemplified, and we might say central to the experience of slave women, and that is sexual violence. We will come back a little bit to talk about jacobs in comparison to our case today, that of celia. We also looked at the wpa narratives, and one of the things we noticed about those narratives was the extent to which some issues, including sexual violence, violence generally, and sexual violence, in particular, was rather muted in the slave narratives. And so here we have an with this case to take another pass at this question, to try to see this dimension of slavery through the experience of celia. So, why do i say try to see this dimension of slavery . As you have all begun to see in your readings for today, there are many ways in which the record and the evidence upon which we rely to discover, explore, and understand the case of celia is a challenging record to make use of. So part of our work today will be to talk about the evidence in the celia case, how it is we recover from what is in essence the record of a trial, a rather fragmentary, carefully, but idiosyncratically assembled group of testimonies, written and oral, arguments of lawyers and conclusions of judges. That, mixed with newspaper reportage, some demographic material like census returns, how we take this fragmentary evidence and try to think in thoroughgoing ways about celias experience, but also how we have to continue to think critically about the evidence that we use, what it can tell us and perhaps what it cannot tell us about celias story. You all have read melton mclaurins book and that is the first popular historical booklength treatment of celias story, but i want to sketch out that narrative for the group as his of our discussion today. Again, this comes as a fragmentary narrative, one that is very driven by the court record, the legal artifacts in the case. First, there is very little for us to say about celias young life. We dont meet her in a formal sense in the historical record until she is how old . Do you remember how old she is when she comes into this story . Anybody . 14 years old, right. She is 14 years old when she first appears to us. She is, as we come to understand it, a young enslaved woman in Central Missouri, and she is purchased by robert newsom, a small farmer in the county of callaway, the town of fulton in missouri. He travels there and purchases celia, and almost from the very moment of that encounter, our story is framed because we learn celia is very soon sexually assaulted by newsom, some say even in the journey back to fulton, but certainly very quickly after they arrived at his farm. What is this place to which celia has come . We know that newsom is a recent widower. In his household are his children, who are now adults. His daughters, as well as a grandson. Newsom is a small farmer. This is not a plantation setting. This is not a largescale enterprise. At most in 1850, he owned five enslaved people in addition to celia. By 1860, he will own just celia and one other enslaved person, a man named george whom we will meet later. He is a small slaveholder, typical in missouri. He makes his way as a subsistence farmer, growing crops and foodstuffs for his family, but also raising livestock. There is also some suggestion in the evidence that he is also a producer of whiskey. But celia arrives not to do agricultural work, not to do farm labor, but she comes to do some household Domestic Labor within this house, but part of what we know is that over the next five years she will become regularly and frequently the target of newsoms Sexual Assaults. Newsom will build a small cabin for celia 60 paces from his home. Far away, but not too far away, as we will learn, for him to visit regularly. She will come to live there in these years herself with then one and then another child that she will bear, likely the children of newsom himself. Children we come to know as vine and as jane later on in the story and celia, by 1855, is again pregnant for the third time. As the record explains, celia tells people she is sick. She is pregnant again. Whether sick is a metaphor for pregnancy or, in fact, she is having a difficult pregnancy, it is clear that celia does not want to abide or accommodate or acquiesce again Going Forward to newsoms sexual advances. The first thing she appears to do is to speak to newsoms daughters. She asks the women in his household to intervene on her behalf, to in some way speak to their father and see if he wont desist, right, from assaulting her, but they have no success, it seems. And then celia has her own confrontation with newsom, and here for our purposes, the core of the story. She seems to advise him, do not come to see me. I do not want to have sexual relations with you. I will not have sexual relations with you. Still, on a june night in 1865, newsom will come those 60 steps from his own parlor to celias cabin, he will confront her, speak to her, approach her in what is, in celias mind, a suggestion he will sexually assault her, and celia defends herself. She picks up a club. She strikes him once, again, and perhaps many times until he falls unconscious and dead in her cabin. What do you do if you are celia . What do you do . Well, part of what we know is that when she when she retells the story, for a while, she is stunned. She has not anticipated, has not intended to kill newsom. She intended to protect ,ourself, attacked herself herself, but now, she realizes he is dead. The question now becomes, how should she deal with that fact . We know that she attempts to conceal the evidence of what has transpired. She will take newsoms body, push it into the fireplace of her cabin. She will stoke the fire, and over the next six hours, she will attempt to dispose of the evidence of what transpired. So much so that by morning, very little is left. Some ashes, some bone fragments, but celia is confident enough that she has concealed her act that as morning breaks, she continues about the ordinary routine of the household. She makes her way to the kitchen to begin to prepare breakfast for the newsom family. Newsoms children awake. Their father is missing, and a search begins for newsom. It takes two major phases. Initially, newsoms children searched the farm itself. Has he wandered off . Has he had an accident . But there is no sign of him. Neighbors joined the search, and the questioning begins. This interrogation, this informal but very important interrogation of people on the farm, one of whom is newsoms grandson, who relates he helped celia distribute the ashes of her fire along the path leading to the stable on the newsom farm. And there is george, the enslaved man owned by newsom. George relates we will come back to his testimony relates that perhaps they want to search in the vicinity of celias cabin. Celia herself, as we know, progressively tells a story. Initially, she denies any understanding of newsoms whereabouts, what might have happened to him. She then begins to piecemeal tell a story. And we understand in a sense why that might have been. The consequences for her act are grave, as we know. And she begins to tell a story, first about having about newsom having put his head through the window and having struck him, his disappearing into the night, but eventually, it seems, particularly under duress, that is under the threat that, in fact, she may be separated from her children, celia reveals to these neighbors, local farmers who have come to investigate the whereabouts of newsom, she reveals to them out of earshot of the newsom children, she reveals that she, in fact, struck newsom dead and disposed of his body in the fireplace. We can follow the story then as it makes its way through now the legal frame. There is an inquest. These local neighbors who have been at the fore of the investigation, newsoms children, and celia herself will all give testimony before a local grand jury, leading to the formal indictment of celia for newsoms murder. There will be a trial. Again, many of these parties retellme forward and their stories, with one exception. Do you remember who does not testify at the trial . Who does not testify . Celia herself does not testify at the trial, because pursuant to missouri law, as is typical in the United States in the mid19th century, no defendant is given the opportunity to give testimony at trial. A defendant in 19thcentury legal culture is deemed to be too self interested to give testimony. Celia does not testify. Many parties we have become familiar with do testify, and they retell, in a sense, celias story, celias version of events. And one of the things that becomes clear in the trial, and while there are facts in dispute, and we will come back to a couple of them, the core of celias story is never in dispute. There never is a question about her relationship to newsom, the longstanding sexual abuse to which she has been subjected, and even how with her third child, she has become sick and has tried to avoid and to fend off newsoms sexual advances, even before striking him with the club. This story, this is celias own story, is one we see in parts adopted by the local farmers who investigated the case, by the members of the newsoms family, and ultimately by the court. This core narrative is one on which everyone comes to agree. Celia is ultimately found guilty by a local jury. We will come back to the jury dynamics in our discussion. She is sentenced to death by hanging. There is a curious interlude that i think we know too little about still. Celia is secreted out of the jail and avoids the initial hanging date because she has been secreted out of the jail and taken to a hiding place. Who is responsible for that and how that comes about is, i think, one of the mysteries of celias case, but we know that, ultimately, she is returned to the jail. A new execution date is set. The state court of appeals hears preliminarily the possibility of celias appeal. Celias lawyers ask if the high court will stay or postpone her execution temporarily until there is a formal review of the Legal Proceedings in the trial court, and the answer is no. The high court sees no legal merit, no likelihood that celia will prevail on appeal. They permit her execution to go forward, and on december 21, 1855, she is hanged in fulton, missouri. So i want to come back with you today to revisit this case through some of the themes we have been developing over the course of the last weeks, come back to celia, as its own story, but also a window into the experience of enslaved women, the role of Sexual Assault in the context of slavery, but also to look at the ways in which law, the ways in which legal culture plays a Critical Role mid1850s missouri. Judges, lawyers, grand juries, local jurors, investigators, witnesses, all playing a Critical Role in determining, if you will, in framing how we might interpret celias story, how we might come to conclude whether celia was justified. Right . You remember, the case turns on was celia entitled to assert selfdefense when she acted to put off newsom, right, to resist his Sexual Assault . Was she entitled to that sort of imminent harm that newsom was surely going to force upon her as he had before, or as an enslaved woman, was celia without recourse . Not in life, because we know in life, she had recourse, and she seized it, but before the law, does she have recourse . So those will be our questions Going Forward today. So three sorts of questions. The first i want to use for us to come back to Harriet Jacobs, who we visited a couple of weeks ago. Jacobs is, of course, perhaps the best remembered of enslaved women. She is so well remembered in part because she pens an extraordinary narrative, the book we come to know as incidents in the life of a slave girl, published under the pseudonym linda brent. But when we talked about jacobs, we talked about incidents, and we saw that, if you will, as a form of testimony, complicated testimony, filtered through jacobss own concerns about her reputation and her standing as a free black woman when she publishes this narrative, filtered through antislavery politics. But we read, you will recall, very carefully to try and discern the way which still with this narrative, jacobs allows us to glimpse something of the persistence, the presence of Sexual Assault, the threat of Sexual Assault in enslaved womens lives. You will remember in her story, dr. Flint, the pseudonym for the father of jacobss owner, the way in which this man in his household in edenton, north carolina, over the course of years, threatens, confronts, promises almost promises, right, to ultimately have access to jacobss body, to have sexual relations with her. She lives under this threat. It is so present in her life that we know in the Broad Strokes that she will ultimately secret herself away for a dramatic seven years in the attic of her grandmothers home until she is finally able to make her way north into freedom. But how would we compare these two stories . Jacobs on one hand and celia on the other . What sort of in what ways should we compare them . In what ways are these stories similar stories for you, and in what way are they contrasting stories . Just hands. Yeah, katie. Katie the differences in the support systems that jacobs and celia had. At least jacobs had her grandmother and other family members and was in sort of this not so isolated area where her grandmother had the ability to protect her and she could appeal to her white lover to protect her, and celia did not have that. She had george maybe. But not as much of a support system. Going off that, celia didnt really have any role models to look up to and to take care of and the fact that she was so much more isolated in her environment. She was kind of all on her own. Prof. Jones good. What about other folks . How would you compare these two women . These artifacts i put up not by accident. On the left you have the title page from jacobss book. On the right, we have a justice of the peaces writing of celias testimony. But i think maybe i have no, that was not it. But here, down on the right, you can see the x. Other differences . Yeah, andrea . Andrea [inaudible] what jacobs did, but celia couldnt. That comes into play as to whether or not she would have had a different outcome for her trial or not. Prof. Jones good. Yes . Harriet jacobs was obviously written by herself, so her story we kind of know. Celias story is what we know from court cases and testimonies, which can be kind of questionable. Prof. Jones this is great, this question of literacy. I will come back to the question of isolation. I think literacy and isolation may be two ways in which we can think about dramatically the ways in which not only the way these stories unfold but how the capacity to tell or remember them are shaped. Yes, jacobs is literate, even if she is an enslaved woman in north carolina. We remember this becomes part of the drama between her and dr. Flint, precisely because part of his terror is to pass her notes. Yeah, siobhan . Siobhan i saw a similarity between them. Prof. Jones good. Siobhan one thing i noticed, i feel like they really did not have anything to lose except when it came to their children. Jacobs would not have stayed in that attic, if it was not for the safety of her children. And for celia, it was not until the interrogator was threatening her children that she kind of felt she had to cave in, so i honestly believe if it were not for them having children, they would have done anything to get out of the situation. Prof. Jones very good. We have two notes of difference and one important piece of similarity. We will come back to that. Coming back to the literacy question, we know that jacobs to have the capacity to read and write and this plays a role, perhaps we would say in her capacity to have a critical consciousness, whether it is her own ability to read the notes of dr. Flint or to read the bible and to develop a critical critique of slavery and the conditions under which she lives. Jacobs is someone for whom literacy played a key role in her lifetime, and for us as historians, we know that her literacy is of extraordinary consequence, because we not only have her narrative, incidents in the life of a slave girl, but we have her correspondence over many years. So we are able to recover, in a sense, a kind of nuance for Harriet Jacobs that eludes us in celias case. In part because celia is at extraordinary distance. Even here in what is said to be her testimony, or her confession, we realize that this text has come through some very complex channels before it comes to us, right . Celia narrates the story. A justice of the peace listens to the story, writes his own interpretation, if you will, of her words. And then celia signs with an x, but we are right to be skeptical about this sort of artifact, precisely because we know celia herself could not read and review the document, even though the x suggests she somehow assented to its content. So i think literacy is an important piece. A number of you mentioned isolation. And here, isolation in celias story takes a number of forms, doesnt it . On the one hand, we could contrast her experience with that of jacobs, who lives in a small town, where she has regular access we will come back to her family, but even in the intercourse of her daytoday life, with free africanamericans, with other white people in edenton, jacobs has a kind of world that becomes critical to understanding how she resists the doctor and ultimately how she escapes. It is that proximity to other people. Celia, by contrast, you are absolutely right. What her life was like in audrain county, we cant say. Right . We do not know. But certainly we know that when she makes that brief migration, if you will, from audrain to fulton and to the farm, she is clearly without family, without acquaintances, and the isolation of that farm, many miles from small, downtown fulton means she does not have the access to allies, to information, to resources that jacobs herself had. That is most vividly underscored by the question of family. Isnt it . We know the role that family plays, the powerful role that family plays for Harriet Jacobs, her grandmother and her uncle early on, who not only provide her psychological support, but they are a sort of moral compass, if you will, that buttresses jacobss critique of her own condition. Right . That she has this kind of family interlocutors, who are critical to her developing critique and her resistance to dr. Flint over time. Again, celia, unclear. Five slaves in that household in 1850. Only two adult slaves, celia and george, by the time newsom is killed. What sort of community might that have been for celia . A modest one. Perhaps one that was profoundly transient. Right . We see enslaved people there and then disappear. Right . Are they sold . Did they run away . Sayan at say, we cannot but we know there is a , transience to this. We can see the relationship with george, we can see the ways how that was immodest and perhaps a somewhat impoverished context relative to jacobs. Siobhan pointed to the context that they are both mothers. Motherhood is a theme we have come back to and we see two women clearly, on one hand, jacobs, who very secretly secrets herself, looking not only to secure her own liberty away from north carolina, but thinking very strategically about how to secure the liberty of her children, which, eventually, she will achieve. Celia, on the other hand, with two small children, and there is that moment when it seems to be the case, right, that she gives herself up in a futile, but still powerful attempt to deflect the threat that if she wont tell the story, she will be separated from her children. So motherhood, right, and the the fate of ones relationship to ones children is this what you were getting at . This is, i think, a powerful similarity. So, here, on the one hand, we might think about celia and harry jacobs as two very powerful narratives, both of which speak to the pervasiveness, the terrible duress that Sexual Assault disproportionately visits upon inflamed women, which are two powerful example. But as we have also set across the semester, our work is partly not to collapse or reduce all enslaved women, all black women to one experience, and we can appreciate through this comparison the ways in which time and place and circumstances are essential to explaining how it is that, for jacobs, freedom and liberation comes by way of fugitivey way of status, by way of writing, and for celia, liberty, in a sense, comes through force, through that club, through that violent confrontation. Womens responses to the shared experience, and at the same time, and experience that is framed for a different very differently and has vastly different outcomes. I want to shift now because part of the way weve been talking about celias case, particularly as we compare her experience to that of Harriet Jacobs, allows us to talk about the social world in a very ambitious and openended way. Underscorehift to the ways in which once celias culture, theegal frame shifts and becomes much more narrow, more focused, more bycialized, more determined the questions of investigators, of judges, of lawyers than by the whole of her experience. And while there are many things we might know about her case, i want to talk a little bit about how we approach some of the evidence, if you will, and how legal culture thinks about that evidence. Are going to look at the transcriptions of some of the materials from celias record. I want to pause at this juncture to give appreciation to a former u of m undergraduate, allison gorsuch. She was a senior here some years ago in the program in american culture. She wrote a senior thesis, excellent senior thesis on the history and the memory of the celia case. Transcribed the trial , that manuscript material , and it is her transcriptions that will take a look at over the next few minutes. Allison, ireciate know, since we ourselves wrestled with transcribing the letters of sarah. Allison spent a year first transcribing and then analyzing this material and she continues today to still work on the case as a phd student, so im really glad we have a chance to look at her early work on the case. Here, what we have in the records are sworn testimony. , some of thetrial local farmers who have come to the farm have talked with the families, talked with celia, talked with george. Statements toworn the request body as they determine whether or not celia should be indicted for murder. Powell, who we know is a local farmer, tells us something of what we know about important, but again, hard to figure out figure, and that is george. After i read celias case the first time, george was one of the most intriguing, important, but difficult to situate figures. You have read some of milton mclaurins interpretation of george, but today we are going to back up a little bit and come back to the evidence and i want to ask you how you think we should understand the role of george in the story based upon the testimony that we have. Here, william powell, a local farmer, is relating his confrontation with george the day after newsom has disappeared. I ask the negroid george were he thought he was. He stated he did not believe it was worthwhile for him anywhere except around the house. For he had reasons to believe he was not far off. I told him he had better go and show us the old man if he knew where he was. He stated he believed the last walking he had done was along this path, that is, the path between newsoms home and celias cabin. Pointing to the path leading from the house to the cabin, from the statement of george, i believe he had been destroyed, killed, in the cabin. Powell, george does not give a formal statement at the state in the preceding, we hear georges words filtered through powells ideas, but we have this suggestion that. What . That george has somehow, if not implicated celia, he certainly has implicated celias cabin as the site of newsoms demise. And as we know, this will lead powell and others to more closely scrutinize the area around celias cabin but also to more closely scrutinized celia herself. Which is part of what precedes the confrontation with celia. Powell also testifies at the trial and in the record, we have a transcription of his oral testimony and on crossexamination, which is to by, as he is being examined the attorneys for celia, he then speaks of george. I went into the cookhouse were celia was. I told her she knew were her master was. That george had said enough to make me believe she knew where he was. She denied it. George is even more deeply implicated, isnt he . Even more deeply implicated. Again,is now relating, his interpretation, his memory of his first confrontation with celia in the kitchen. He says i told her she knew where her master was, but george had said enough to make me believe she knew where he was. Exactly what he told us just prior, george said. George said something about the vicinity of the cabin. So we can see the ways in which powell and others who were investigating case begin to discern that between celia and george, there might be a space in which they can insert some insert some confusion that might net them more evidence, might even a infection. Play celia and george off one another, in a sense. Perhaps, evenng, what george had said to him. Celia, as we know at this juncture, remains resolute that she had nothing to do with it. Jones, youfferson farmer,ember, a large his farm is just adjacent to that of the newsom family. Jefferson jones is one of the first people outside of the newsom family itself on the scene, this testimony will play an Important Role in the indictment of celia and ultimately in her conviction. Trial, he testifies. Standing in the middle of the room when she struck him. I asked her whether she had told anyone that she intended to kill the old man. Perhapss a theory that there is a modest conspiracy afoot. Perhaps celia was premeditated in her plan. I asked her whether she had told anyone that she intended to kill the old man. She said that she never had. I told her that george had run off and that she might as well tell if he had anything to do with killing the old man. Says said that george need not have run off, because he does nothing about it. I asked if george had advised her to kill the old man. Not only that she had premeditated, but, in fact, that it was george who told her to kill newsom. She said he never had, said that georgia told her that he would have nothing more to do with her if you did not quit the old man, said that george had been staying with her. I kind of feel like he pressure her into having no other option but to kill them due to the fact that he would not have anything else to do with her if she didnt do anything. The second kid, she was unsure. Unsure,nk we are probably most unsure about celias third child. She is pregnant at this moment and there is an open question about whether that child was fathered by newsom or by george. There is the strong suggestion that there is an intimate relationship between celia, george stayed with her this notion that george has urged celia, suggested strongly to celia that she should avoid newsom. Is apossible that there more familial kind of relationship, that they are friends, my brother and sister, and george is looking up or celias best interests, but it seems to be more likely that they have an intimate relationship of a sort. No question now when you get to the testimony of herself iscelia reinforcing the theory that certainly, george played a role in the story, so she is quite resolute still in her confrontations with jones, that george has not advised her to harm newsom, did not conspire with her to kill newsom, did not have a physical hand in harming newsom or disposing of the body. These are all the kinds of questions that we have, but he goes on. Said struck with the right hand on the right side of his head. I asked her if she did not know that she could not have struck him as she said, if george had not struck the old man from behind. She said he did not, but he knew nothing about it and was not there at the time. Again, jones has pressed this theory that george has a role in celia remains consistent throughout the many toortunities that she has tell her own story, she remains resolute that george did not have a role. When i look back on this whyimony, and i ask myself, do i still have questions about george . , tellk there is no fact me if this is true, there is no fact that is more provocative than that one in which we learn that jones tells celia that george has run off. Did you have a reaction to this notion that george has apparently, according to jones, run off . How might we interpret georges running off at this juncture, and why do you think that shapes my initial impressions of george . I dont know, it just makes it seem like he did have something to do with it, like he is guilty of something. For me, i felt like it was kind of messed up, because him in celia are together, why would he claim that miss newsom was at her cabin . If it was me, i would probably be like, i dont know. I have no idea. Like, put her out like that. I just felt very weird about george. Mean can you point to something . I know what youve got, but point to it. Is there something in these , despite celia tells you george has nothing to do with it, why do you think that . Because he ran away. Thats guilty. He didnt run away when he was there, but all of a sudden he dies, youre the left ear and she could be Strong Enough, obviously, to kill him, but she would need some help from a man. Then, i guarantee you she fears her masters or she would not want to go by herself. Hands, im going to work my way across the room. Ahead. At least with something else, some type of help for the killing of it. Also, any man in slavery, i would think this man is sexually abusing my girl, you cant do anything about it, but when i have the opportunity, somebody will react to it. Obviously hes dead now, no one wants to get caught, so am going to try to help my girl get rid of the body. So nobody gets in trouble. We are going to come across the miles. I think Everyone Wants to believe that a woman isnt Strong Enough to actually have the power to kill him, so i think what the court is trying to do, it has already established the threat of a black man, of how strong he is, how aggressive the is, but for a black woman to have that kind of power would just make a whole other issue. I think what the court is trying to do is try to justify the situation saying it is a strong, aggressive black man that did woman,sus an enslaved and i think that with george, he already through her under the bus anyway. At that point when she was in to getshe had a chance revenge on him if she wanted to. I felt the way he might have felt is if they say anything about her children, she might say anything to get out of the situation. At that point, he really was at the mercy of celia. I feel like for selfpreservation, he did the best thing for himself by running away. How else would he know where hewhy wouldnt suggest where was if he didnt have something to do with it . It doesnt make sense. Guess,oes seem to be, i celia was about my age, i dont think i could pull the dead body of an old man, i dont think im Strong Enough, i dont see how she could do it by herself, especially if she was pregnant. I dont know, i think you would be capable of pulling a dead body if you had to. George, i feel like maybe celia felt like she needed , we saidf the case there is only two adults at this family farm, and so if he was convicted, too, it would be no one to watch her children. I couldnt imagine what she felt like if they told her he had ran, because where but her children go . I dont really feel like that was ever fully discussed. Going off of that there were only two adults, we dont know if they had an intimate relationship that if they did, he would be her only family, and i think she would have done anything. I mean, if he did run away, he left her under the bus, but at the same time, i dont think that implies guilt necessarily because there are only two farm, and i dont think that, just the way the system of slavery works, i dont think they would have seen way, likeocent in any i think he could have run away to save himself, but that does not necessarily imply guilt. That feeling is still really prevalent today in a lot of people. People who dont really have the means to represent themselves in court tend to do things because they feel like they have no other option, and it makes them look way worse but it does not necessarily mean they are guilty. Times when people are investigating, they kind of say things that are not necessarily true to get the responses they want. Something have been that Jefferson Jones was saying to be like, look, george ran away, tell us everything you know because you are the only one left. Device to get a confession out of her. Its hard to make an idea because everyone had different ideas, but i just question, like, it took her like six hours to get everything clean and to do everything, where was george in that time . Where could he have possibly been to not see anything that happened . For him to run away, even if he didnt have something to do with it, he could have known that she did it, so that made him afraid because he didnt want to have anything to do with it. Good. One more . While were talking about would have been a reason why there would have been a fire . Cooking. Cooking, first and foremost, i think in june. Unusual, but maybe the quantity ultimately turns out to be a little suspicious. Unwilling to move on, but this is good. Im glad to know you all, after reading this evidence, shared unsettlednesstial about the role of george. And lets remember that all we are in terms of evidence the testimonies of the neighboring farmers. What they sayr us george said, what they say celia it would be a mistake, i think, to rest too much confidence in this testimony. We have the sense even from that little testimony, the ways in which these investigators are twisting, embellishing, empathizing some facts in an effort to extract confessions in an effort to secure a conviction. I think as readers, as researchers, as historians, we read this with caution. Us thatause jones tells george had run off, look at what he says. I told her that george had run off. Say georgia runoff. Runld her that george had off. And we are not surprised that in the telling of that, true or false, is the effort to break celia down. And to encourage her to implicate george. Just for the reasons that you suggest, that it can be read as george having abandoned celia in this extraordinary moment. So, how do we deal with this . That is to say, is powerful testimony, it is provocative testimony. It certainly shapes our ideas, or perceptions, our understanding of what transpired, and the role that george played. And as weve done in other examples, we have to think critically. One way to do that is to look for new evidence, to look for alternative evidence that might help us fill in some of the blanks, pieced together the puzzle of george. That last weekend, no, it was the last weekend, last wednesday, i spent the day with the celia project working on the history of the celia case, and we visited fulton, missouri. And one of the places that we visited was the kingdom of callaway historical society, where they dont have the trial record, nor do we have the trial record from the court archives, but they have the state records of robert newson. Why is this interesting . After newson dies and we all know that he is killed in june of 1855, it would be necessary eris and legal representatives to take an inventory, to accumulate all of his assets and distribute his heris. To his various error and the record of that legal proceeding heris. Heirs. The originals are there in the kingdom of callaway inventory estate records. While i know you cant see it here isward the bottom the inventory of the slaves in the household, and there is one knee grow man, george, negro at 900. Ge, valued george had not disappeared at all. And when it comes time to inventory the estate, there is george. And if we continue the record, what we find is that george and self will be sold. He will be sold to a slaveholder for more celine county 119 his value, for 0 and he did not disappear at all. For me, this changes a lot of that read that testimony, comes from the local farmers. They might have said george ran but it fears appears george had not disappeared at all and he is ultimately as caught up in his own way in the aftermath of nuisance killing over celia. He is not ever charged or convicted of newsoms murder but he is subject to what we have come to understand is another of slaverys most harsh practices, he is sold away. He is sold away from the community that he knows, from the household that he knows, from the people whom he knew best, george now is sold away. And i think it changes, right . It changes how we read that testimony. It helps us appreciate what bit of evidence that record is. Stories of our work Going Forward in unraveling the mysteries of the celia case requires a to reach beyond the trial record and to read it alongside these other materials as a way, perhaps, for me, suggesting the ways in which celia and george, both in their own ways, were caught in the vice of this household of newsoms abuse and the fallout from celias effort to defend herself. They are both caught out in this story in harsh ways. I will point out, and i hope we will come back to it, below the entry for george in the are the other two slaves in the household and their children, celias children. Whos girl named jane, three years old, a girl named viney who is three yearsf old, and the second name viney, both valued at 150 each. When george is sold alongside his sale of celias two daughters out of the news and household as well. New evidence allows us to add players and think with important yonuance. Let us go back to the trial. Part of what you know is that, at the end of the trial, the presiding judge, the trial judge, will instruct the jurors. What does it mean to instruct the jurors . They are not legal professionals, they do not have any special knowledge of the law be it of rape, murder, selfdefense, and part of the courts role is that, at the end of the hearing of the evidence, they instruct the jury, direct the jury about the law so that gh the evidence and guilt against the law as the court instructs. Want to look again at the state law and the actual jury instructions in this case. We learn from this the ways in which the powerful role local judges interpretation of the law that plays in determining celias fate. Celias lawyers, you will recall, attempted to introduce evidence and argue that celia, while she killed newsom, is not guilty of firstdegree murder. Why . An individualw who understands him or herself to be the imminent victim of a felony, to be in imminent fear of bodily harm, has the right to inpond to that self selfdefense. While she did kill newsom she was defending herself against the felony of rape in missouri. That is keystatute to determining whether or not celia was in fact in imminent fear of being raped. Every person who shall take any woman unlawfully against her will, and by force, menace, or duress, compelled her to marry him or any other person, or to be defiled, upon conviction thereof shall be punished by imprisonment in the penitentiary not less than, or exceeding, less than five years. What are the keywords for our consideration . Any woman unlawfully, against her will. How do you read this . Mary. That makes the assumption the woman in question has will. No such rule exists and that is why the court did not recognize her selfdefense claim. Good. Will,man against her and one of the key questions the court must implicitly resolve celia a woman is with will . As an enslaved woman does she have will . Peter. Isupon conviction thereof, incompatible with slavery at the time. Is ok for the slaveowner it says they are incompatible. Newsomy person including upon conviction. Could he have been convicted . Could he have been convicted in this same court for the defilement of celia . Yeah. For me, it was less against her will and more the unlawfully. Therek it is more was the dehumanization of slaves, but i think the point was more like as a slave, she did not have the protection under the law to have it be against her will. Shecounted as rape was property. He could do whatever he wanted. Excellent. We have a judge in Central Missouri in the mid1850s who has to read this language and ask himself, what is the state of the law, how should i interpret the law in this specific instance . A slaveholding man and enslaved woman. Is the will of the master absolute . Will, no celia has no will to resist. Any womane implicitly qualified and does it really mean any freewoman, any white woman . All of these things are example, that, celias are in the hands of a local judge. How does this play out . Well, prior to actually charging the jury, giving them instruction, the judge solicits theirawyers on both sides recommendation for charges to be proposed. Here is the wonderful manuscript document which i have not asked you to read because we have allison gorsuchs wonderful transcription. This is the jury instruction, one of them, that is proposed by celias team. Instruction is refused by the judge. He declined to direct the jury in this way. Believes from the evidence that celia did kill newsom, but that the killing was necessary to protect herself against a forced sexual intercourse, on the part of newsom, and there was imminent danger of such forced sexual connection being accomplished by newsom, they will not find her guilty of murder in the first degree. Here is an interpretation of the law that brings together that statute we looked at with the defense, selfdefense, and makes an argument, provides a frame for how the jury might interpret this evidence. This is the argument made by celias lawyers and what we recognize here is that this is celias story. The story that she has told over time, that by bit, but ultimately again and again is one in which she understood herself to be in imminent danger of a forced sexual encounter with newsom, and when she finds herself in such danger she acts in selfdefense. Not to intentionally kill newsom, but to defend herself against Sexual Assault. Here celias testimony, her narrative, her critique of her own circumstances then inform and make its way into this proposed jury instruction. Instructionat the the court actually delivers. Habit ofm was in the having intercourse with a slave, and went to her cabin on the night sh he was killed, and while standing on the floor she struck him with a stick, which was a dangerous weapon, and knocked him down and struck him again after he fell, and killed them either by blow, it is murder in the first degree. This is so interesting because it is a specific. Has, by way of prosecutors proposal, adopted a version of the law that almost is a blueprint for celias isry, accept the conclusion counter. Absolutely counter to the clue collusion the defense team offered. Defendant had no right to kill him because he came to her cabin and was talking to her about having sexual intercourse with her or anything else. Do you see the way in which, in this moment, the court, by way of the crafting of jury instruction, is now closing the possibilities . Narrows the possibility for the outcome in this trial. Very little space in which this jury might maneuver if it otherwise is expected to exonerate celia, because the court said if she did the act, there is no defense available to her and we know she did the act. Peter. [indiscernible] say it again . [indiscernible] was a particular two enslaved women . That is a good question. Not quite a court decision. I jury instruction, which is framing,and powerful decision is ultimately rendered by the jury. Question, isal this particular to celia, to enslaved women, what do you think . When you look at the language, what do you think . Is this particular two enslaved women or could be given in the case of any woman . Particular to celia. We do not know if it is particular to any woman. We would have to look into that. We would partly need to look more broadly at other cases. There are very few such cases in missouri. We could look at this alongside other, similar cases in other jurisdictions and part of what we would learn is this is a moment in which not only missouri, but other slaveholding states, the most memorably mississippi, are grappling with the question of Sexual Assault, rape, and concluding that this sort of rule, this configuration, is specific to enslaved women. It is specific to women who are not free. That is the qualifier. The defendant was his slave. We get the sense the way in which the court is bringing in this fact, even though it is not expressly provided for in the lawin developing a common around slavery and sexual violence. Maggie. I think the theme in the jury instruction also predates this in the testimony of where george ran away, and that was false, it i think that was because not only implicates a black man as being violent, which was a , but also grant celias claim of selfdefense and set Legal Precedents that would have to be recognized not only in missouri, but courts nationwide. That would unravel the roots of slavery as being a dehumanizing institution. One of the questions this twice leads us with is what would be the implications . What would be the implications to conclude otherwise . In our readings they suggest the storyn which this sort of that begins with the Sexual Assault by a slaveowner is all too common a story. To open the door to the possibility that enslaved women might be able to charge their owners with rape, seek prosecution for Sexual Assault, and even more so to be able to defend themselves opens a door. Door that to open a this court is certainly not willing to open, and i think no court is willing to open in the 1850s. A couple more things. End talking about where we are with the celia case. You read the 1991 book which really popularized celias story and made it possible for us to teach celia, but the work continues. Celia still is not as well remembered as that other 1850s missouri case involving slavery, dred scott versus sanford, that many of you know about in which an enslaved man sues for his freedom having been brought to free territory, ultimately decided by the Supreme Court that he is a slave. The dred scott case is when we study and read and situate in the canon of slavery and law. Perhaps has not quite made buto that sort of space, there are important local figures who have worked to preserve the memory of celia. I want to point to some of these in closing. Left you seee Margaret Bush wilson. She is now deceased but was a longstanding and much admired attorney, civil rights attorney, in st. Louis, missouri. She learned of celias story and became much admiring of celia and wanted to work to help remember celia and bring her story to life. The 1990sions in the portrait on the left. An oil portrait of celia done by the artist on the right in st. Louis who the celia project met this past weekend. We were very privileged to meet him and learn about his work. Moment in which we have local figures working in important ways to preserve and bring celias story to life. This portrait hangs briefly in the Missouri Historical society before it becomes part of Margaret Bush wilsons personal collection. Writes, herhe tribute to celia, gives you a sense about the purpose of celias memory for Margaret Bush wilson. It is on the one hand about restoring that story to visibility, extracting it from record and bringing it to life, but for Margaret Bush wilson, celia is an inspiration. We take strength from your courage in our own time as we face strife. We take strength from your courage. One interpretation of celias story is that it inspires us to be courageous in our own lifetimes. From 2005 tossouri residents12 local day of her the execution to pay tribute to her. Whying her case up and celia . They want to talk about racism in the 21st century. Celia is part of a narrative. Racism then, racism today, you still have racism in fulton. Celia takes on a symbolic value for telling a long history of racism in this local community where she lived and died. Twolly, that have been stage productions, one in fulton and one in london, england, which are dramatic reenactments of her story. In both of these instances playwrights taking important creative license to give celia words, for example, we know that she never spoke. Through all the records sh we have we have no unmediated words. Her story reaching audiences, but becoming fictionalized. We talked about Harriet Tubman and Hillary Clinton when she quotes tubman. The dangers of the fictionalization. Project is scholars coming back to the case and doing the work of trying to understand these archival materials that go beyond court record, like the newsom estate inventories. We went to the site of the newsom farm. Here is where as much as i think i want to end by telling you historians are the bastion of evidence and social science, that we dont get caught up in romance or myth or fiction when it comes to celia, i believe you to contemplate this scene which is our team on what is now federal land in fulton. The site where the newsom family and the newsom farmstead. Stood. All that is left are Foundation Stones and old trees and open wanting,t historians in some sense, to walk that walk, the 60 paces from the house to the cabin to try and inhabit celias world, to try and be closer to her and her experience. I think we would all say, there was not much evidence here. It was extraordinarily powerful to walk for an afternoon the walk celia had walked those many years ago. We will stop here. When i see you next time we will continue with this theme of history and memory and myth by looking at the case of Sojourner Truth. You will read the biography of Sojourner Truth and we look at the ways in which painter tries to pull apart history from myth and the life of that extraordinary figure. Thank you very much. Have a great day. I will see you on thursday. Listen to lectures in history on the go by streaming our podcast anywhere, anytime. You are watching American History tv only on cspan3. Announcer American History tv on cspan3. Exploring the people and events that tell the american story, every weekend. Today at 2 30 p. M. Filmmaker john will commit discusses his book, how film makers reimagined america. It explores the history of nonfiction films and television from the 19th century Thomas Edison films to the 21st century reality tv. Ica we0 p. M. On reel amer feature films on civil rights leaders starting with James Baldwin at the National Press club in 1986. Followed by 1992 american profile interview with former congressman shirley chisholm. At 6 00 p. M. A look at women in congress with matthew was new wasnewski. Stories about Margaret Chase smith and lindy boggs. Watch American History tv today on cspan3. Announcer you are watching American History tv. Exploring our nations past every weekend on cspan3. This week we are looking back to this day in history. Narrator this aroused a larger awareness to the right of the americans to share not air, but is and your opportunity and privilege as well. 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