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 ma
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 talked about wpa narratives, and one of the things we noticed about those narratives is 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 with the celia case the opportunity to take another pass at this question, to try to see this dimension of slavery through the experienceli 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
Ill point out as an aside below the entry for george in the inventory are then the other two slaves in this household and they are children. Celias children. One, a girl named jane, who is 3 years old. And im sorry, a girl named viny, who is 3yearold. And the second a girl, 1 1 2 years old, named jane. Both here valued at 150 each and i can tell you that when george is sold when we account of record of georges sale alongside is the sale of celias two daughters out of the newsom household as well. So new evidence allows us to add new layers and think with important nuance about this case. One more i think important question. Slavery and the law of rape. Lets go back to the trial. Part of what you know is that at the end of this trial, the presiding trial judge will instruct the jurors in this case. What does it mean to instruct the jurors. Here jurors are not legal professionals, they dont have any special knowledge of the law, be it of rape, be it of murder, be it of selfdefense. And p
Selfdefense selfdefense. The argument is that celia while she killed newsom, did so defending herself against newsoms commission of a felony, the felony of rape or defilement in missouri. Here the statute that is key to determining whether or not celia was in fact in imminent fear of being raped. Lets read it together. Every person who shall take any woman flauflunlawfully and by force, menace or duress compel her to marry him or to marry any other person, or to be defiled, upon conviction thereof, shall be punished by imprizsonment in the pen penitentiary for not less than five years. Any woman unlawfully against her will. How do you read this as applies to celia . That makes assumption that the woman in question has will in fact. I know that as a slave that they are no such will exists and i think thats why the court did not recognize herself defense claim. Good. So it is any woman against her will. I think one of the key questions here that the court must implicitly resolve for itse
The mid19th Century Court case of celia, a female slave who killed her owner after repeated Sexual Assaults. Looks at the involvement of her fellow slaves and owners white neighbors in her court case. This is about an hour and 20 minutes. Today we will continue the discussion we were having, that we began a couple weeks ago, talking about the history of slavery, and in particular, the experiences of slave 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 introduces us 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 talked about wpa narratives, and one of the things we noticed is the extent to which some issues, including Sexual Violence violence generally, and Sexual Violence in particular was rather muted i