Murder_Her_Cause

Tomesha Lindsay Eng. 151-011 October 27, 2010 Professor Whitlow Murder Her Cause In the literary work, Meditation on History, by Sherley Anne Williams, Odessa lives in a rural county in Kentucky and later in Alabama during the Antebellum era of 1820's. The system of slavery in Kentucky operates as a labor systems like most states in the south with a widespread of cotton growth. Many slave owners come to south in search of land to grow cotton because of its rich production. The slave masters owned slaves and lived in big mansions with their families. Slaves lived in small cabins sectioned in quarters behind the mansion or big house. “The material embodiment of the slave community consisted primary in the quarters or cabins, which sometimes were clustered near the big house but usually were further removed” (Fox-Genovese 149). Most slaves work in the field with the supervision of whites. “In the fields, the white overseers and black drivers saw to it that everyone maintained the pace set by the lead workers” (Sterling 14). An overseer has a watchful eye over the slaves during their routine jobs and supervises the slaves when the slave master was not present. “Even when slave women worked under a driver or in all-female group under female supervision, the shadow of the master or the overseer hovered over them” (Bighouse big hand 190). Usually a driver, a black male slave, helps the overseer supervise the slaves in the fields and on trips. Most small farms work slaves in gangs, which classifies them by age and gender with different duties dividing among them. “Not everyone with a large slave force organized the gangs by gender, but most seem to have done so” (175). The division of labor by gender challenges the slave master. “Furthermore, a strict gendered division of labor in the quarters openly challenged the masters' purely opportunistic approach to slave women's fieldwork” (Jones 26). Odessa is a field slave on the Hughes farm. The female field slave works in the fields all day and night where she picks at least 100 pounds of cotton daily. Work is not limited to gender or physical ability. Field slave women perform jobs such as plowing, cutting down lumber, and clearing the fields. Most slave women suffer severe treatment from their masters and others in authorities causing them to rebel. They receive whippings at the discretion of the slave masters or overseers. “Since women attained parity with black men in terms of their productive abilities in the cotton fields, they often received a proportionate share of the whippings” (18). During the Antebellum era, several pro slavery individuals and slave owners fear slave revolts or uprisings. “...white fears of the influence of the Haitian slave revolts upon the native black population surfaced as early as 1793” ( McLaurin 55). Odessa kills the slave dealer, Vaugham as justification reasons Master Jefferson killed Kaine. Whites kill slaves with no punishment for the crime, so it should be equally right for a slave to kill as well. Odessa escapes and her sentence does not carry out. Had she not escaped, she would not have received a real trial because she is a slave. The rest of the participating slaves have been tried and hanged. Odessa trial is delayed because of her pregnancy. It is an automatic crime for a slave to violate a white person. “By law if a slave woman raised her hand against a white man, even to protect her own body, she was committing a crime” (Clinton 211). Odessa and other slaves plot an escape while they travel to New Orleans with the slave dealer. While resting, one of the slaves use a pin to set the chains free and several slaves revolt and attack the slave dealer and overseer. Odessa murders Vaugham by placing a knife in his ribs. Different punishments are given to the involved slaves, but Odessa sentence of hanging is put off until she delivers her child. She stays at the Hughes farm with a midwife nearby and recounts her story to the writer. Odessa does not have a real trial because one of the slaves, Elijah tells of the plot that was in place to overthrow the white authority. She does not have rights to a real trial because she is a slave and considered personal property. Slaves could be tried in a court with two justices of the peace and six freeholders was a penal code issued in 1700. Odessa's circumstances differ from that of Celia: A Slave, because Celia is directly affected by a crime done unto her. Her slave master Newsom repeatedly rapes her against her will; whereas Odessa is reacting to a crime done to her lover. Celia is viewed as a house slave and property of Robert Newsom on a Missouri farm in 1850. The female house slave learned the duties by the age of thirteen. The duties consisted of cooking and preparing meals along with sewing, washing and weaving clothes for the master's family. “Slave women sewed in the big house under the direction of their mistresses or a slave seamstress” (Fox-Genovese 178). Gruesome activities such as physical brutality and rape existed daily for the female house slave by the mistresses or slave owners because the house slaves were more accessible. “Chastisement for minor infractions came with swift severity; cooks who burned the bread, and children who stole sweets or fell asleep while singing to the baby, suffered all kinds of abuse. “The master's house offered no shelter from the most brutal manifestations of slavery” (Jones 25). However, Robert Newsom provides Celia a cabin of her own so she could be accessible for him as his concubine. “Certainly one such reward, at least from Newsom's point of view, if not from Celia's, was a cabin of her own, one that would have been luxurious compared to the housing in which the vast majority of American slaves resided” (McLaurin 28). In history, slave owners raped slave women as an act of empowerment. “Rape has been employed as a collective as well as an individual means of social control-for the perpetrators and the victims” (Clinton 206). Rape impacted both male and female slaves even though there was little recourse done to stop the crime. “Regardless of the circumstances under which the womenfolk were sexually abused black men reacted with deep humiliation and outrage, a reaction that a t least some slaveholders intended to provoke” (Jones 35). Rape was not considered a crime if it was done to a white women. This attitude predominated minds of many whites especially historians in the rural south. “As Genovese has bluntly put it: 'Rape meant by definition, rape of white women, for no such crime as rape of a black woman existed” (McLaurin 111). Celia develops a relationship with another slave, George, who demands she ends her sexual encounters with Mr. Newsom. She faces a decision to make to satisfy, George, who may be the father of her child. To begin the process, Celia visits Newsom’s daughters, Mary and Virginia, to tell them of the sexual molestations she receives from their father. She lets them know that if he doesn’t stop, then she will hurt him. On Saturday, June 23, Celia asks Mr. Newsom to leave her alone and he ignores her request by visiting her later that evening. He visits her later that evening and is never seen again. Celia murders him by hitting him in the head with a large stick and burns his body remains in the fireplace. The daughters questions George, who suggests they search Celia’s cabin. She denies seeing Mr. Newsome that previous evening, but a buckle and button was found nearby to confirm her story after she confesses to his murder. On Monday, June 25, local justices and six jurors files an affidavit accusing her of murder. They found probable cause and she was arrested and taken to Fulton County jail. At this time of Newsom’s murder and Celia’s trial, Missouri is being faced with debates about receiving statehood. Abolitionists wanted to have slavery abolished and ended before Missouri could receive its statehood. The courts grant Celia a trial to offset the debates of slavery. Pro slavers want to defend the argument of slavery as being evil. The real purpose of the trial is to contend that slavery is a way of life and that slaves receive fair treatment. “The abolitionist press was full of tales of the brutality of slaveholders…handled badly, Celia’s trial could provide additional grist for the propaganda mill of the northern abolitionist, become yes another tale of the brutal exploitation of a young, innocent, helpless slave girl” (McLaurin 81). There could have been a different outcome under circumstances if the trial was fair. If Celia receives a fair trial, slavery will be proven to be inhuman and slaves rights would have been equal to whites. Robert Newsom would have been punished for the rape or intrusion against property just as if a black man would have received for trespassing of raping a white woman. Neighbors and peers view Mr. Newsom as a righteous man. “Robert Newsome seem the ideal representative of the family farmers who in 1850 composed the majority of the citizens of Callaway County, Missouri. His life experiences, family relationships, and economic status made him seem so” (1). Opinions were already pre formed about Mr. Newsom by the ruling class of whites which makes the trial unfair. The oppression of racial discrimination allow society viewpoint to be unjustifiable.