It is 1850, and a prosperous Missouri farmer named Robert Newsom buys a fourteen-year-old slave called Celia. Newsom is a typical Missouri farmer, with a huge family, and two daughters, Virginia and Mary, still living at home. Robert buys Celia because he is recently widowed and wants someone to sleep with; the first night that he buys her, he rapes her, and her life continues like this for many years. Celia has no way to defend herself against Robert because she is considered to be his property and she does not have any legal right to refuse him.
Robert bought Celia at the peak of the discussion about slavery, and at the height of the abolitionist movement. Many northern politicians are opposed to slavery expanding into the western states that have been won in the Mexican-American war. Congress debates at length over these questions and eventually Missouri is admitted into the Union as a slave state. This is a terrible setback for the abolitionists, because it sets a precedent for accepting states that allow slavery into the Union in years to come.
Celia has a lonely life on the farm, and a miserable one. She is considered a sexual predator by Robert's daughters, who believe that she has seduced their father in his time of grief. Her life changes when she meets George, another slave, and begins a relationship with him. When George finds out that Celia and Newsom are having sex, which he considers an affair, and when Celia discovers that she is pregnant she does not know if the father is her slave master or her boyfriend. George is scared to confront Robert, so he takes his anger out on Celia instead. He issues an ultimatum - break off her affair with Robert or never see him again. Celia is in an impossible situation. She can't stop Robert from raping her, but she doesn't want to lose George, whom she loves. She tries to approach Virginia and Mary, telling them that as she is sick from her pregnancy she is not well enough for their father's sexual advances. She also intimates that she will defend herself with force if he approaches her in this condition. Virginia and Mary don't seem keen to do anything; still considering her a seductress, they have little sympathy with her plight.
June 23, 1855; Newsom sneaks into Celia's cabin but is met with a frigid reception. Celia tells him not to come near her, but he ignores her, so she hits him with a heavy stick over and over. He staggers backwards, and falls to the ground. When Celia realizes that she has killed him she is terrified. She knows that she will be hanged for killing him, despite the fact that he was raping her and she was defending herself and her unborn child. She burns his body in the fireplace, and by dawn, the only trace of Robert Newsom is his ashes.
The following morning, his absence is noted, and family and friends immediately start to search for him. William Powell, a neighbor, questions Celia. When she tells him the truth about what happened, she is arrested, and her trial date is set for October. It is the worst time for her to find herself in this predicament in terms of social climate; slave uprising is a distinct possibility and it is something that the slave states fear enormously. She will be punished to the full extent of the law in part to deter other slaves from defending themselves in the same way.
Celia is appointed a man named John Jameson to be her lawyer. He is charismatic and well-respected in the community. He is a religious man, with sympathy towards Celia and other women in her position, and he argues strongly that she has the right to defend herself against rape, even from her master. He plans to cite a Missouri statute that gives women the right to "defend their honor". The problem with this, though, is going to be convincing a judge that Celia, as a slave, is legally a person. As a slave, she is part of Newsom's property and not a person in her own right.
Stephen Douglas, an influential senator, passed the Kansas-Nebraska Act allowing residents of new western states to vote to decide for themselves whether slavery should be allowed in their own states. Missouri had more than its fair share of pro-slavery politicians at the time, the leading one of which was David R. Atchinson. He manipulates the situation of Kansas so that it is declared a slave state but his actions create riots and there is blood shed over the contentious issue. Against this backdrop, Celia's trial begins.
Jameson is nothing short of brilliant in her defense. He basis his argument on her right to defend herself against rape and also cross-examines prosecution witnesses to show without a doubt that she was being raped systematically over a period of years. Most of the witnesses don't want to admit this, and the prosecution successfully object to his arguments and conclusions.
The most important part of any jury trial is jury instruction - the part where the Judge guides the jury to their conclusion and hints at the direction in which their considerations should go. Jameson's contention that as a woman Celia has a right to defend herself falls on deaf ears. Judge Hall will not allow her to be considered more than property, and so she is sentenced to be executed. Jameson is furious and works to file an appeal to the Missouri Supreme Court. The Court ignores him, but a couple of days before she is scheduled to die, Celia is released from jail, but only to find that Jameson's appeal has been denied. The Supreme Court upholds the ruling that states a slave is the property of the owner and therefore has no legal rights whatsoever.
At the end of December, Celia is hanged.
