She was the slave Celia, who, when she arrived in 1850, was approximately fourteen years old, about the same age as Newsom's daughter Mary. Practically nothing is known about Celia's life before her arrival at the Newsom farm.
This is a sickening observation, given what occurs between Newsom and Celia. He has a daughter the same age as the young girl he has purchased with the intention of raping her. When Newsom bought Celia, he was lonely, because his wife had recently passed away. and he bought her with the express intention of assuaging his physical needs and having sex with her. This was far easier than actually having a relationship because unlike a woman in a relationship she was unable to make any protestations, or to protect herself against unwanted advances. The fact that she was the same age as his daughter when he began to rape her is one of the most heinous aspects of the story of Celia's life.
Another point made in this introductory passage about Celia is that she seems largely to be a person without any personal history whatsoever. Nobody cared enough about her to find out where she had come from, or why she was sold. It is as though she never mattered as a person even before she was a slave.
A healthy sixty years of age, Newsom needed more than a hostess and manager of household affairs; he required a sexual partner. Newsom seems to have deliberately chosen to purchase a young slave girl to fulfill this role, a choice made the more convenient by the ability to present the girl as a domestic servant purchased for the benefit of his daughters.
Newsom is portrayed in the book, and by history, as an unappetizing combination of sexual predator and child sex trafficker. He obviously gave some thought to how he could find himself a sex partner whilst maintaining a certain propriety to the outside world. Celia's young age was a smokescreen in that he could pretend that she was going to be a maid for his young daughters. It is likely that Newsom is not the only person who ever thought of this ploy and the quote gives some insight into the sexual exploitation that went on disguised as slavery.
