. .

. i'll point out as an aside below the entry for george in the inventory are then the other two slaves in this household and they are children. celia's children. one, a girl named jane, who is 3 years old. and -- i'm sorry, a girl named viny, who is 3-year-old. and the second a girl, 1 1/2 years old, named jane. both here valued at $150 each and i can tell you that when george is sold -- when we account of record of george's sale alongside is the sale of celia's two daughters out of the

newsom household as well. so new evidence allows us to add new layers and think with important nuance about this case. one more i think important question. slavery and the law of rape. let's go back to the trial. part of what you know is that at the end of this trial, the presiding trial judge will instruct the jurors in this case. what does it mean to instruct the jurors. here jurors are not legal professionals, they don't have any special knowledge of the law, be it of rape, be it of murder, be it of self-defense. and part of the court's role is at the end of the hearing of the evidence to instruct the jury to educate the jury to direct the jury about the law so that jurors can weigh the evidence and ultimately the question of

celia's guilt against the law as the court instructs it. so i want to look again at the state law, and then at the actual jury instructions in this case. we learn i think, from this the ways in which the powerful role that many a local judge's interpretation of the law, the powerful role that plays in determining celia's fate. celia's lawyers, you will recall, have attempted to introduce offend and to argue that celia, while she killed newsom newsom, is not guilty of first degree murder. why? because by missouri law, an individual who understands him or herself to be the imminent victim of a felony to be in the

imminent fear of body harm has the right to respond to that in self-defense self-defense. the argument is that celia while she killed newsom, did so defending herself against newsom's commission of a felony, the felony of rape or defilement in missouri. here the statute that is key to determining whether or not celia was in fact in imminent fear of being raped. let's read it together. " "every person who shall take any woman flauflunlawfully and by force, menace or duress compel her to marry him or to marry any other person, or to be defiled, upon conviction thereof, shall be punished by imprizsonment in the

pen penitentiary for not less than five years." "any woman unlawfully against her will." how do you read this as applies to celia? >> that makes assumption that the woman in question has will in fact. i know that as a slave that they are -- no such will exists and i think that's why the court did not recognize herself defense claim. >> good. so it is any woman against her will. i think one of the key questions here that the court must implicitly resolve for itself before it instructs the jury is is celia a woman with will. does she have will as an enslaved woman such that she can resist. yeah, peter. >> so i think faesthat's

incompatible with the idea of slavery at the time. it's okay for like slave owner to order something to the slaves, but that upon conviction thereof said slave, those two things are incompatible. >> so here every person -- right? including newsom -- right -- upon conviction. could newsom have been convicted? right? could he have been convicted in this same local court for the defilement of celia. yeah. >> i think for me it was less about against her will and more about the unlawfully part because i think it's like more -- i mean i know there was all that dehumanization of slaves but i think the point was more that like as a slave, that like she didn't have the protection under the law to like have -- to -- that being against her will was counted as rape

because she was property and therefore he could do whatever he wanted but less so about her will and more about if it was unlawfully. >> excellent. excellent close reading. here a judge in central missouri in the late 1850s has to read this language and ask himself what is the state of the law, how should i interpret the law in this specific instance. a slave holding man, an enslaved woman. is the will of the master absolute? such that celia has no will, no will to resist. is the phrase "any woman" actually implicitly qualified and does it really mean any free woman, any white woman. right? all of these questions are questions. right? that in celia's example are in

the hands of a local judge. how does this play out. well, prior to actually charging the jury, giving the jury instructions, the judge solicits from lawyers for both sides the prosecutor and the defense lawyer, their recommendations for charges to be proposed. here's the wonderful manuscript document. which i haven't asked you to read because we have an such excellent transcriptions. but here this is one of the jury instructions, but the key jury instruction that's proposed by celia's team. i note this instruction is refused by the judge. he declines to then direct the jury in this way. but the defense argues "if the jury believes from the evidence that celia did kill newsom but that the killing was necessary so protect herself against a

forced sexual intercourse with her, on the part of said newsom, and there was imminent danger of such forced sexual connection being accomplished by newsom, they will not find her guilty of murder in the first degree." so here is an interpret tagsation of the law that brings together that statute that we looked at with the defense, self-defense. and makes an argument provides a frame for how the jury might interpret this evidence. this is the argument made by celia's lawyers. and what we recognize here is that this is celia's story. celia's story, the story that she has told over time bit by bit, but ultimately again and again, is one in which she understood herself to be in imminent danger of a forced sexual encounter with newsom. and when she finds herself in

such danger, she acts in self-defense. not to intentionally kill newsom, but to defend herself against sexual assault. so here celia's testimony celia's narrative celia's critique of her own circumstances then informs and makes its way into this proposed jury instruction. let's look at the instruction that the court actually delivers. if newsom was in the habit of having intercourse with the defendant who was his slave and went to her cabin on the night he was killed to have intercourse with her, or for any other purpose, and while he was standing on the floor talking to her, she struck him with a stick which was a dangerous weapon and knocked him down and struck him again after he fell and killed him either by blow, it is murder in the first degree. it's an extraordinary jury instruction, in part because it is so specific to the facts.

here the court has by way of the prosecutor's proposal, adopted a version of the law that almost is a blueprint, in a sense, for celia's story -- except that the conclusion is counter. right? absolutely counter to the conclusion the defense team is offering. defendant -- in case the jury is not clear, defendant had no right to kill him because he came to her cabin and was talking to ler abouther about having sexual intercourse with her or anything else. "or anything else." so do you see here the way in which in this moment the court by way of the crafting of jury instructions, is now closing the possibilities. narrows the possibilities for the outcome in this trial. very little space in which this jury might maneuver if it

otherwise expected to exonerate celia, because the court almost in essence says, if she did the act, there's no defense available to her. and we know she did the act. yes, peter. >> so was this court decision -- [ inaudible question ] >> say it again. was it particular to? >> enslaved women. >> was it particular to enclaveslaved women. here a jury instruction, not quite a court decision. while it is a powerful framing the decision, if you will, is ultimate a verdict a verdict of guilty rendered by the jury itself. but to your central question, is this particular to celia to enslaved women. what do you think? when you look at the language?

what do you think? is this particular to enslaved women or is this an instruction that could be given in the case of any woman? >> i think it is just tick la to celia. we don't know if it is to all slave women, we'd have to look at it more because there is so specific to her case. >> yeah. so partly we would need to look more broadly at other cases. there are very few such cases in missouri in this period. we could look at this alongside other similar cases in other jurisdictions. part of what we'd learn is that this is a moment in which not only missouri but other slave holding states, the most memorably, mississippi, are also grappling openly with the question of sexual assault/rape

in enslaved women, and also concluding this sort of rule, this sort of configuration, is specific to enslaved women. it is specific to women who are not free. there's that qualifier. "the defendant, who was his slave." so we get the sense the way in which the court is bringing in this fact even though it is not expressly provided for in the law, that is developing and kind of common law, we would say around slavery and sexual violence. >> i think the theme seen here in the jury instruction also predates this and the testimony of where it was said that george ran away and that was, as we can tell, that was false. and i think that was because it fed into the social influences that we see here. because not only does it implicate a black man as being violent, which was a popular image, then and now -- but that's controversial -- but also

to grant celia's claim of self-defense would also set legal precedent that would have to be recognized not only in the state of missouri but in courts nationwide and that would unravel just the roots of slavery as being a dehumanizing institution. >> so one of the questions that this choice by the judge leaves us with is what would be the implications. what would be the complications to conclude otherwise. right? and our readings more generally, darlene clark hine, and others, have suggested to us the ways in which this sort of story, this sort of circumstance, that begins with the sexual assault of enslaved women by an owner is all too common a story. and to open the door to the possibility that tenenslaved women

might be able to in fact formally charge their owners with rape, seek prosecution for sexual assault and, even more so, to be able to defend themselves, opens a door. right? appears to open a door that certainly this court is not willing to open. and i think no court is willing to open in the 1850s. a couple more things. so i want to end just to talk about where we are with the celia case in some sense. you all read the 1991 book which really popularized celia's story and has made it possible for us to teach celia. but the work continues. celia still is not as well remembered as that other 1850s missouri case involving slavery, dred scott versus sanford a

case that we've mentioned and many of you know about in which an enslaved man sues for his freedom having been brought to free territory, ultimately decided by the supreme court that he is a slave. the dred scott case is one we study and read and situate in the canon of slavery and law. celia, perhaps not yet, has not quite made it to that sort of space, but there are important local figures who have worked to preserve the memory of celia. so i want to just point to some of these in closing. here in 1995 on the left you see margaret bush wilson. wilson was -- now deceased but was a long-standing and much-admired attorney, civil rights attorney in st. louis, missouri. and she herself learned of celia's story and became much admiring of celia and wanted to work to help to remember celia

and to bring her story to light. she commissions in the 1990s the portrait you see on the left, an oil portrait of celia done by the artist on the right solomon thurmond, in st. louis who the celia project met this past weekend. we were very privileged to meet him and learn more about his work on celia's portrait. but here is a moment in which we have local figures working important ways to preserve and to bring celia's story to light. this portrait hangs briefly in the missouri historical society before it becomes part of margaret bush wilson's personal collection. the poem that margaret bush wilson writes, her tribute to celia, gives you a sense about the purpose of celia's memory for at least margaret bush

wilson. it is, on the one hand about restoring that story to visibility, extracting it from the historical record and bringing it to light. but for margaret bush wilson celia is an inspiration. we take strength from your courage in our own time, as we face strife. we take strength from your courage. so one interpret tagsation of celia's story is that it inspires us to be courageous in our own life times. in fulton, missouri, from -- for the last -- from about 2005 i think to 2011 or '12, local residents gathered on the anniversary of celia's execution to hold a candlelight vigil and pay tribute to her. once again bringing her out from historical on security holding her case up. in this instance, why celia? well this group wants to talk

about racism in the 21st century so celia is part of a narrative -- racism then racism today. we still have racism in fulton. so celia again takes on a kind of symbolic value for telling a long history of racism in this local community where she lived and where she died. finally, there have been two stage productions, one locally in fulton, and one in london, england, both dramatizations of celia's story. powerful bringing celia's story to mass audiences. but, in both of these instances playwrights taking important creative license to give celia words, for example that we know she never spoke. right? from all of the records that we have, we have no unmediated words of celia. so here celia's story reaching large audiences, but becoming in a sense, fictionalized.

you remember when we talked last time about harriett tubman moment when hillary clinton quotes harriett tubman. the celia projects has scholars coming back to the case to do work partly to understand these new are -- archives. we went to the site of the newsom farm. here's where i thinkchives. we went to the site of the newsom farm. here's where i think as much as i wanted to end by telling you the historians are really the bastions of evidence and social science, that we won't get caught up in romance or memory or myth or fiction when it comes to celia, i'll leave you just to contemplate this scene which is our team out on the -- what is now federal land in fulton, the site where the newsom family and

the newsom farm stood, the site of this dramatic moment in the life of celia. all that's left are somer foundation stones and old trees and open fields. but here historians, too, wanting in some sense to walk that walk the 60 paces from the house to the cabin to in some sense try and inhabit celia's world to try and be closer in some sense to her and to her experience. to say there wasn't much evidence here, it was extraordinarily powerful to walk on an afternoon the walk celia had walked those many years ago. so we'll stop here. when i see you next time, we'll continue with this theme of history and memory and myth by looking at the case of sewojourner

truth. we'll look at the ways painter tries to pull apart history from myth in the life of that extraordinary figure. thank you all very much. have a great day. i'll see you on thursday. >> you've been watching a special presentation of our lectures in history series. we've got more every saturday. join students from across the country to hear lectures on topics ranging from the american revolution to the 9/11 terrorist attacks. lectures in history every saturday at 8:00 p.m. and midnight eastern, here on american history tv on c-span3. and we want to tell you about some of our other american history programs. join us every saturday at 6:00 p.m. and 10:00 p.m. eastern for a special look at the civil war. we'll bring you to the battlefields, let you hear from scholars and re-enactors and bring you the latest historical forums on the subject. again, that's programs on the

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