Celia Slave

Celia a 14 year old slave kills her master due to him raping her quite often in a cabin by his house. When she is put up for trial the verdict does not focus on why she killed her master but because she killed her master. This relates very much to real life. During the 1800s when a slave committed a crime that the master wanted

Harriot Wilson’s “Our Nig” illustrates the struggles of a young mulatto woman name Frado. Although she is not enslaved like Frederick Douglass, she still suffered psychologically and physically by the hands of White people. At the age of seven, Frado is abandoned by her mother and officially becomes a servant for the Bellmont family. For years, Mrs. Bellmont treated Frado like a slave, by physically abusing and berating her. Like Douglass, Frado was deprived of an education just so she could remain ignorant.

Harriet Jacobs focuses mostly on detailing the maltreatment of slaves and the impropriety of slave masters during the first part of Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl. By sharing facts about these incidents, she shows how slaveholding warps humanity and morality to a measure that would be considered deplorable outside of slavery. Jacobs describes the inhumane treatment of slaves when discussing a neighboring plantation. She shares how this plantation commits many cruel murders of its slaves. For example, she discusses how one slave had a “fire kindled over him, from which was suspended a piece of fat pork.

The book ‘Celia a Slave’ is primarily about how unfair and inhumane slaves were treated in the early 1800’s. Melton McLaurin describes what is known about the life of Celia from when she arrived at the Newsome household until the day she was hung. Celia was only fourteen years old when Robert Newsome bought her. Newsome had recently lost his wife, but he had 2 daughters living with him that took care of the house chores and such, so what was Celia needed for? Celia was bought for one reason only, to be Robert Newsome’s sex slave.

On the 8th of this month, I attended a lecture in the UA Poetry Center presented by Dr. Jerome Dotson (an instructor in Africana Studies). The speaker, who obtained a MA in African American Studies and a PhD in History, presented information for this particular lecture on the diets of slaves, and specifically within that, the connotation of pork in their meals. Dr. Dotson began the talk with a brief discussion of ‘roots’ and played a video of Kunta Kinte’s visual explanation of the meaning of food in a slave’s life. The video highlighted what slaves ate, which consisted mostly of grits, roughly ground corn, and pork. Kinte’s video also presented yet another tragedy behind slavery—the nature of chronic underfeeding and hunger.

He is often remembered as an abolitionist, editor, orator and autobiographer that argued passionately and eloquently against the institution of slavery (Bader 67). In Douglass’ early years he dealt often with constant hunger, sleeping on dirt floors, many beatings and lashings, as well as witnessing these same actions performed on family that he loved. At a young age Douglass recalls questioning why white children knew their birthdays and their ages and black children did not. He struggled for a long time to finally make sense of it until he eventually came to understand the injustice of slavery (Bader 68). Frederick Douglass reports a defining moment he had with owner- Sophie Auld and how she demanded he abandon his cowering posture and to look her in the face when she is speaking to him.

On one hand, the “Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass” is a narrative of a slave attempting to become free. On the other hand, it is a narrative of how African Americans are mentally and physically turned into slaves—moreover how white men manifest their superiority. Firstly, Frederick was separated from his mother as a young child, leaving no time for the two to build a relationship; “I received the tidings of my mother’s death with much the same emotions I should have probably felt at the death of a stranger” (Douglass, 6). Secondly, Edward Covey, one of Fredericks slaveholders, strategies in establishing his dominance was through making him work relentlessly and punishing him when he felt necessary—which almost never was necessary. Frederick understands how slaveholders can make their slaves feel inferior and degrade them through physical power however is intrigued with the idea of how slaveholders dominate their slaves minds.

Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl “…Though we were all slaves, I was so fondly shielded that I never dreamed that I was a piece of merchandise…” (Jacobs 820). In “Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl”, by Harriet Jacobs, Linda Brent describes her first-hand experience in slavery under the name Linda Brent. Through Brent’s life, from childhood until her twenties, Harriet Jacobs wrote about an African-American girl struggling to come to terms with her identity as a slave. In this story, Jacobs focuses on Linda Brent’s mental suffering during slavery rather than her physical abuse.

Reason: Power over a person can be a poisonous temptation and it can deftly change a person. Slavery can be a deadly thing, and can change a compassionate person (such as Mrs. Auld) into a cold-hearted, cruel master. Power often corrupts and poisons people and owning a person distorted and warped Mrs. Auld’s views of morality. Purpose:

Isabel is a thirteen-year-old African-American slave working under Madam Lockton, a dirty loyalist, in the novel Chains. Throughout Chains, Isabel changes from an intimated and gloomy young girl to a confident and proud young woman. Many events all through the book help shape Isabel’s character, but a few things were very important to Isabel’s development. Those things are reading Common Sense, realizing that Madam cannot chain her soul, and discovering that Ruth had been “sold”. Before reading the pamphlet Common Sense by Thomas Paine, Isabel kept thinking that she would never have a shot at gaining her freedom.

Whenever a man acquired more slaves, the amount of his wealth increased, and so did his social status. This led to Newsom, having slaves to add value to his social status. Most of his slaves worked on his farm and around the household. Among his slaves was Celia, who he made a sex slave, but to avoid a scandal, she also cooked and cleaned for him (McLaurin, 1991). Making her fulfill his sexual pleasures denied Celia control over her life.

In “A Narrative of the Captivity and Restoration of Mary Rowlandson” and “Narrative of the life of Fredrick Douglass”, Rowlandson and Douglass tell the story of their captivity and slavery; with their patience, faith and determination they each fought for their freedom. Although the stories take place at least 100 years apart, they both exemplify the harsh reality of being captive. Mary Rowlandson and Fredrick Douglass are two writers who had entirely different experiences but in both of their narratives it becomes clear that they each went through a long journey to obtain freedom. Some of the hardship that they both had to overcome included not only being whipped, restrained and beaten, but also being overworked and undernourished, lacking

One of the most difficult situations to face in life is a moral dilemma. This is exactly what was encountered by slaveholders and plain folk alike concerning the trial of Celia, a slave during the 1850s. The moral ambiguity of slavery is addressed in Celia, A Slave, especially as the sexual aspect of Celia’s case called people to contemplate whether it was moral to mistreat slaves. When Celia had been sexually abused and mistreated by her master, she lashed out and killed him. From the perspective of the 1850s, her master, Robert Newsom, had not committed a crime, whereas Celia had perpetrated a crime deserving of the death penalty.

While the slaves were sometimes viewed as evil, or even monsters, by their owners, the cruelty the slave owners showed them made them into monsters instead. Isabel only wanted to save her sister when she was sold, but because of Madam’s cruelty toward slaves and people she thought inferior to her, she was punished harshly and branded so that her ‘insolence’ would be displayed for all to see. Madam was very harsh and cruel toward Isabel even when she had done nothing wrong. (p. 144) She even locked her in a potato bin when she found out Isabel was conversing with the rebels.

These occurrences have made her realize that the brutality is considered normal and is no longer a surprise to anyone during this pre-war era. Whitehead focuses this slave narrative as a means to rethink the traumatic in slavery. This novel begins with Cora living in Georgia on a cotton plantation. Cora encounters various forms of abuse and decides to run away with a fellow slave named Caesar. Caesar tells her of this underground railroad they can take to escape.