Sparknotes Celia A Slave

The book Celia, a slave, was written by Melton McLaurin to show the horrors of slavery in America during the slavery periods and thus, provide insight into the dark times of the slavery encouraging America of the time. In the book McLaurin expertly explores the topic of sexual exploitation of slaves by narrating the case of Celia, a slave that was convicted of the murder of her owner. Celia was only fourteen years old when she was bought as a slave for her owner who at the time had five other slaves. At the time owning of slaves was the apex of wealth, and her owner who happened to be rich by the standards of the time could afford to have five slaves.

Robert Newsom, who bought Celia, started sexually abusing her on the day she was purchased

The trial judge tried to be seen as being impartial by allowing Celia to access the best defense attorneys available and allowing the case to be determined by a jury. The defense comprised of three defense attorneys who were never known to hold any strong opinion on the matter of slavery though they were very good in research. In the defense of the case the attorneys wanted to prove the motive of the murder rather than try to claim innocence in the case. They knew Celia stood a chance to be acquitted or get a lenient sentence if they played to the sympathy of the jurist and the judge over her sexual harassment under her

The help by the people to enable Celia to wait for the decision of the Supreme Court on a case is an evidence of the good will that some people in the society had for her in her quest for justice. This serves to justify the thought of McLaurin, who says in the book that “The events in the last year of Celia’s life, although extraordinarily dramatic, demonstrate the nature of the moral choices individuals faced and indicated that some individuals had great difficulty making