18thVirginia
Major
- Joined
- Sep 8, 2012
Although we often read that women had no rights in the antebellum period and sometimes that things like divorces were never awarded by the courts, when I read a novel, Selma, by a judge in Alabama, he noted cases in the back of the novel. One of these was a case awarding a divorce to an Alabama woman. There are other cases such as that of the slave Celia, who was hanged for defending herself against her master in Missouri. Judith Keller Schafer, a former professor at Tulane, read and documented a lot of antebellum legal cases involving prostitutes and slaves in antebellum New Orleans.
I thought it might be helpful to have a thread that we can continue to add to where we explain a little about some famous or important legal cases that involved women.
Celia, A Slave
For nineteen-year-old Celia, a slave on a Missouri farm, five years of being repeatedly raped by her middle-aged owner was enough. On the night of June 23, 1855, she would later tell a reporter, "the Devil got into me" and Celia fatally clubbed her master as he approached her in her cabin. The murder trial of the slave Celia, coming at a time when the controversy over the issue of slavery reached new heights, raised fundamental questions about the rights of slaves to fight back against the worst of slavery's abuses.
The political implications of Celia's trial could not have escaped Circuit Court Judge William Hall. Certainly, he knew, proslavery Missourians expected Celia to hang. Hall's choice as Celia's defense attorney, John Jameson, was a safe one. Jameson's reputation as a competent, genial member of the bar and his lack of involvement in the heated slavery debates (despite being a slave owner himself) ensured that his selection would not be seriously contested. Jameson could provide the defendant with satisfactory--but not too satisfactory--representation. In addition, Hall appointed two young lawyers, Isaac Boulware and Nathan Kouns, to assist Jameson in his defense.
The Supreme Court ruled against Celia in her appeal. In their December 14 order, the state justices said they "thought it proper to refuse the prayer of the petitioner," having found "no probable cause for her appeal." The stay of execution, the justices wrote, is "refused."
Celia was interviewed for a final time in her cell on the evening before her execution. Again, she denied that "anyone assisted her...or abetted her in any way." She told her interrogator, as reported in the Fulton Telegraph, "as soon as I struck him the Devil got into me, and I struck him with a stick until he was dead, and then rolled him into the fire and burnt him up." Celia died on the gallows at 2:30 P.M. on December 21, 1855.
For a more complete summary, go here: http://law2.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/celia/celiaaccount.html
Case records can be found here: http://law2.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/celia/celiarecords.html
https://www.awesomestories.com/asset/view/WHO-WAS-CELIA-Celia-A-Slave
I thought it might be helpful to have a thread that we can continue to add to where we explain a little about some famous or important legal cases that involved women.
Celia, A Slave
For nineteen-year-old Celia, a slave on a Missouri farm, five years of being repeatedly raped by her middle-aged owner was enough. On the night of June 23, 1855, she would later tell a reporter, "the Devil got into me" and Celia fatally clubbed her master as he approached her in her cabin. The murder trial of the slave Celia, coming at a time when the controversy over the issue of slavery reached new heights, raised fundamental questions about the rights of slaves to fight back against the worst of slavery's abuses.
The political implications of Celia's trial could not have escaped Circuit Court Judge William Hall. Certainly, he knew, proslavery Missourians expected Celia to hang. Hall's choice as Celia's defense attorney, John Jameson, was a safe one. Jameson's reputation as a competent, genial member of the bar and his lack of involvement in the heated slavery debates (despite being a slave owner himself) ensured that his selection would not be seriously contested. Jameson could provide the defendant with satisfactory--but not too satisfactory--representation. In addition, Hall appointed two young lawyers, Isaac Boulware and Nathan Kouns, to assist Jameson in his defense.
The Supreme Court ruled against Celia in her appeal. In their December 14 order, the state justices said they "thought it proper to refuse the prayer of the petitioner," having found "no probable cause for her appeal." The stay of execution, the justices wrote, is "refused."
Celia was interviewed for a final time in her cell on the evening before her execution. Again, she denied that "anyone assisted her...or abetted her in any way." She told her interrogator, as reported in the Fulton Telegraph, "as soon as I struck him the Devil got into me, and I struck him with a stick until he was dead, and then rolled him into the fire and burnt him up." Celia died on the gallows at 2:30 P.M. on December 21, 1855.
For a more complete summary, go here: http://law2.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/celia/celiaaccount.html
Case records can be found here: http://law2.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/celia/celiarecords.html
https://www.awesomestories.com/asset/view/WHO-WAS-CELIA-Celia-A-Slave
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