I was Robert Newsom, a middle-aged widower-farmer in Callaway County who bought a 14-year old girl slave and raped her whenever I wanted, including in the farm wagon on the way home from the sale. She had two children with me and was expecting a third when I went to her cabin in June of 1855 looking for more sex.
She beat me to death because I had ignored her protests against my abuse. and had warned me not to come to her cabin. She burned my body to hide what she had done.
This is not a tale of reincarnation. I died in the second act of a three-act reader’s theatre production of Song of the Middle River, written by Thomas D. Pauley III, a longtime professor at Lincoln University that I got to know and appreciate late in his life. He was at the performance, just short of his 90th birthday.
(MU professor and distinguished actor Clyde Ruffin, who played George—the slave in whom Celia sought refuge—and Griot, who told the story; MU Theater student Valerie Raven-Ellen Backstrom* as Celia; and Bob Priddy)
The State Historical Society, produced three readers’ theatre productions that were performed at Boonville’s historic Thespian Hall. This one was performed on February 6, 2009.
Celia was hanged on December 21, 1855 for killing Newsom. She’s referred to in various accounts as Cecilia Newsom because slaves often were given the last names of their owners no matter what their real names were. But she was never considered part of the family—just property.
As Newsom, I played someone whose wife had died in 1849. Some say we had fourteen children in the 37 years we were married. Others list ten. By the time she died, I owned 800 acres of farmland southwest of Fulton. About half of the families in Callaway County owned at least one slave, and about one out of every three people in the county were property then.
Several counties along the river in central Missouri had high percentages of enslaved population, earning the area the title of “Little Dixie.” Ten percent of all of the people in Missouri were enslaved then; thirteen percent of all families had at least one slave. The slave population was closed to 115,000 and there were 24,300 slave owners. The 1860 census put a monetary value on slaves—$44.2 million. That’s the equivalent of about $1,578,320,000 today.
It was not uncommon for owners of female slaves, even young ones, to define “property” and “property rights” broadly, to say the least. After she beat him to death, she burned his body and buried the ashes and other remains.
Reports indicate her defense attorney used an 1814 law protecting women from sexual assault but the judge ruled that Celia, as a slave was not legally recognized as a citizen and as a slave, her status as a woman was not recognized in the law, a ruling underlined a few years later when the Supreme Court ruled Dred Scott had no right to sue for his freedom because black people would never be considered citizens.
She was hanged. Nobody knows where she’s buried. But now Governor Parson has pardoned her and in doing so has placed a new spotlight on justice for those our society has considered—and in some cases still does consider—different and therefore not deserving of having the rights the rest of us have.
One of her descendants, Alan Turner, said at the recent commemoration of her execution in Fulton, “It’s worth mentioning that if Celia’s act of self-defense occurred today, she most likely would not have been executed. Robert Newsom would be convicted of a crime instead”
Each year, some of Celia’s descendants gather in Fulton to remember her case. They hope Callaway County will take notice of what happened to Celia and that the legislature will pass a bill requiring schools to make her story part of the learning process.
Legislation has been filed for the session starting soon. But it might be difficult to pass in an era where many loud voices think the most important this is to post the Ten Commandments in school and teach about the Bible.
They seem to be afraid that they will lose something if their children learn about all of our history.
Despite them, we are slowly being taught about the time when many of our ancestors were not good enough to be considered citizens—-and when some of our residents are deemed not worthy of living here.
The descendants hope a monument to Celia can be erected in Fulton to remind all of us of what our culture once was and to make us uneasy today when it is easy to condemn others as non-citizens or to look at them as lesser than ourselves.
A year or so ago, a monument was erected in St. Louis honoring enslaved people who sued for their freedom and the white attorneys who helped some of them win. It sprang from work beginning more than thirty years ago when the local records preservation program began at the state archives. Then-archivist Ken Winn recalled (Rescuing History – Rediscovering the St. Louis Freedom Suits – FREEDOM SUITS MEMORIAL FOUNDATION (stlfreedomsuits.org) the discovery of the documents involved in 300 lawsuits and more than 350 people:
Unfortunately, the verdicts frequently go unnoted in the case files, but of these 300 cases it would appear nearly half of the enslaved plaintiffs won their lawsuits. This is remarkable because the plaintiffs could not testify on their own behalf and were forced to rely on white lawyers and judges and needed white witnesses to help them. They risked physical harm, harassment, and intimidation from those who wished to keep them in bondage.
All of these suits did not happen in only in St. Louis. A slave named Sant won his suit in Boone County; we don’t know if there were more filed in other counties but it would be no surprise if some ere.
In Greene County, Millie Sawyers finally won her freedom on a third attempt in 1836. But after she won her freedom, a mob took her from a home and beat her badly. Some of those involved are considered founders of Springfield. It’s thought she survived but she disappears from the historical record after that.
A play called “The Milly Project” was created and performed in Springfield a few years ago. It later was turned into a documentary film.
We had an outstanding discussion about the memorial and about The Milly Project in a podcast for the Missouri Bar more than a year ago. (‘Is It Legal To…?’: Missouri’s Freedom Suits, ‘The Milly Project’ (mobar.org)
Our state and nation are great at building statues to men. We have a few showing women. But monuments to slaves? Hardly any. We need them.
In Boonville, a statue of Hannah Cole commemorates her as the first white woman to settle on the south side of the Missouri River in central Missouri. There probably was a second woman who was with her—a sister-in-law named Phoebe—but she’s overlooked.
And so is Lucy, a third woman, Hannah’s slave, given to her as a wedding present according to some accounts, who stayed with Hannah until she died and is buried near her mistress in a cemetery south of Boonville although the exact locations are uncertain. She would have been the first black woman in that part of the state (there might have been a male slave but that history is even more cloudy that hers).There’s not statue nor is there any marker nothing that she probably was on the same pirogue that came across the river with Hannah and her sister-in-law, that she braved the hostile conditions of 1810 just as the white women did. But there is nothing either in the city or in the cemetery that says she existed.
On December 1, 1862, Abraham Lincoln told congress, “The dogmas of the quiet past, are inadequate to the stormy present. The occasion is piled high with difficulty, and we must rise —with the occasion…”
In giving freedom to the slave, we assure freedom to the free honorable— alike in what we give, and what we preserve. We shall nobly save, or meanly lose, the last best hope of earth. Other means may succeed; this could not fail. The way is plain, peaceful, generous, just — a way which, if followed, the world will forever applaud, and God must forever bless.
On the larger scale, Lincoln’s words are fitting for our times. But in terms of today’s discussion, his comment that, “In giving freedom to the slave, we assure freedom to the free” is particularly appropriate, then as part of s second revolution, and today as a warning against accepting any form of tyranny—within or without.
When I was Robert Newsom that night on the stage of the oldest continuously operating theatre west of the Alleghenies—it opened nineteen months after Celia was hanged—her story became part of my story. Whether we like it or not, her story is part of the nation’s story.
Alan Turner said in Fulton a few days ago, “There’s a saying that time heals pain, and that is true to an extent, but some pains transcend generations and never completely heal.” Unfortunately, each generation seems to find someone new on whom to inflict the pain of inequality.
So, Justice has finally come for Celia, thanks to Governor Parson. But the search for justice remains for many and for some, the pains and the search are ongoing. And as long as that is happening, the desire in our Constitution for a more perfect union remains unfulfilled.
*(Photo Credits: State Historical Society of Missouri and The Missouri Bar. Valerie has since 2009 become an award-winning playwright, illustrator, author, and teaching artist. She is based in Chicago)