Ian Cohen
Tuesday, October 2, 2012

Book Analysis 1

Much of African-American history in America over the past four centuries is a recollection of stories from the years when African-Americans were utilized as slaves on the plantations of affluent, white farmers. In the book, Celia, A Slave written by Melton A. McLaurin, Celia’s fate in many ways did in fact seem predetermined. As an enslaved woman who killed her white master in the nineteenth-century US South, I agree with the statement that it was very unlikely for Celia to ever escape with her life. The story accounts of Celia’s life bound together in a vivid way to relay the circumstances surrounding a female slave’s cruel life and the ways that she took matters into her own hands. “Slavery was an institution fundamental to the existence of Southern society, a permanent part of the Southern way of life,” (McLaurin, 18). Hence, the fact that in many ways, Celia’s fate was decided on the day that Robert Newsom claimed her, as the options that she once had would no longer be available.
In 1855, slavery was a major source of sectionalism in the United States. It was in this chaotic setting that Celia was put on trial for murdering her master, Robert Newsom, who had been consistently raping her for five years. Throughout Celia’s trial the two main views on slavery were seen: some saw them as people and others just saw them as property. “Her experience suggests…that slaves were powerless to protect there most basic humanity from the predations of the master is more accurate than recent scholarship,” (McLaurin, 137-138). The defense that Celia’s lawyers put forward, if accepted, would have threatened many of the principal assumptions that society used to make slavery function efficiently during that time period.
As a slave living under such conditions as Celia was, it was certain that her resistance and