In 1855, a Missouri court tried an enslaved teenager named Celia for the murder of Robert Newsom, the man who had bought her at about fourteen and raped her repeatedly for the next five years. The trial of Celia, a slave, turned on a single legal question: whether Missouri’s statute protecting “any woman” from forced sexual violation applied to a woman who was also property. The court said it did not. Celia was convicted of first-degree murder and hanged on December 21, 1855, at nineteen.
Who Celia Was
Robert Newsom was a prosperous widower in Callaway County, Missouri. In 1850 he bought Celia, then roughly fourteen, and installed her in a cabin on his farm. He began raping her almost immediately, and she bore two children as a result of the ongoing assaults.1Famous Trials. Celia, A Slave, Trial (1855): An Account
By early 1855, Celia was pregnant again and in a relationship with George, another man Newsom enslaved. George pressed her to end Newsom’s assaults. Celia went to Newsom’s grown daughters, Virginia and Mary, and asked them to persuade their father to leave her alone while she was sick. The assaults continued.1Famous Trials. Celia, A Slave, Trial (1855): An Account
The Killing on June 23, 1855
On the night of June 23, 1855, Newsom came to Celia’s cabin intending to assault her again. She later told investigators she had warned him she would hurt him if he did not stop. When he kept coming, she struck him with a large stick and killed him. She burned his body in her fireplace through the night and disposed of the remains by morning.2Famous Trials. Celia, A Slave Trial (1855)
When Newsom did not appear the next day, a search began. George, afraid for himself, told searchers he had last seen Newsom heading toward Celia’s cabin. Under questioning, Celia confessed. She said she had not meant to kill him, only to hurt him enough to make him stop. She was indicted for murder on June 25 and held in the Callaway County jail through the summer.3University of Missouri-Kansas City School of Law. State of Missouri vs Celia, a Slave
The Legal Contradiction at the Center of the Case
Missouri law in 1855 contained two rules that could not both stand in the same courtroom. Section 29 of the Missouri Revised Statutes of 1845 made it a crime to take “any woman” against her will and, by force or threats, compel her to be sexually violated. On its face, “any woman” was broad.4THIRTEEN | PBS. Slavery and the Making of America – The Slave Experience: Legal Rights and Government
At the same time, the Missouri Slave Code of 1804 treated enslaved people as personal property, no different from any other chattel their owners possessed. Within that framework, a master’s sexual assault of an enslaved woman was not rape but the use of his own property, closer to trespass on the owner than a crime against the person. Celia’s trial forced the state to say which principle controlled.4THIRTEEN | PBS. Slavery and the Making of America – The Slave Experience: Legal Rights and Government
The Trial and the Defense’s Argument
State of Missouri v. Celia, a Slave began in October 1855 in the Callaway County Circuit Court before Judge William Augustus Hall.3University of Missouri-Kansas City School of Law. State of Missouri vs Celia, a Slave The court appointed John Jameson, a prominent local attorney, to lead her defense.
Jameson’s argument was straightforward. The 1845 statute protected “any woman” from being compelled into sex by force. Celia was a woman. Newsom’s repeated assaults were therefore felonies, and Celia had the right to use force to stop them. The jury, Jameson urged, should decide whether Celia reasonably believed she was in immediate danger of rape and acted to protect herself.
The prosecution’s answer went to the foundations of slavery itself. An enslaved woman was property, and property could not be the victim of a crime committed by its owner. Allowing an enslaved person to claim self-defense against a master would, the state argued, unravel the legal and economic structure the entire system rested on.
Witness testimony filled in the background. Virginia Waynescot, Newsom’s eldest daughter, described searching the farm for her father. On cross-examination she confirmed that Celia was pregnant and had been too sick to cook for the family since February. Other witnesses confirmed that Celia had complained to members of the household about Newsom’s demands and had asked for help.1Famous Trials. Celia, A Slave, Trial (1855): An Account Celia’s own statement, that she had wanted to hurt Newsom but not kill him, could have mattered under Missouri homicide law, where the distinction separated murder from lesser offenses. Whether it would matter depended entirely on the judge.
Judge Hall’s Jury Instructions Decided the Case
Under Missouri procedure, each side could propose specific jury instructions for the judge to give, modify, or reject. Jameson submitted at least nine instructions designed to let the jury weigh Celia’s motive, her right to resist sexual assault, and degrees of culpability short of first-degree murder. Judge Hall rejected every one.1Famous Trials. Celia, A Slave, Trial (1855): An Account
One rejected instruction would have permitted acquittal if Celia believed she was “in imminent danger of forced sexual intercourse.” Another would have allowed a not-guilty verdict if the jury found she killed Newsom while trying to fight off his sexual advances. Hall discarded them and told the jury instead that “the defendant had no right to kill [Newsom] because he came into her cabin and was talking to her about having intercourse with her or anything else.”1Famous Trials. Celia, A Slave, Trial (1855): An Account
That instruction ended the case. Hall held that the 1845 statute’s protections did not reach enslaved women, which meant Celia had no legally recognized right to resist Newsom’s assaults. Her reasons for killing him became legally irrelevant. The only remaining question was whether she had done it, and that was undisputed.
Verdict, Appeal, and Execution
The jury returned a verdict of guilty of murder in the first degree, and the court sentenced Celia to hang.3University of Missouri-Kansas City School of Law. State of Missouri vs Celia, a Slave
Jameson filed an appeal and sought a stay of execution. Judge Hall refused. About five days before the scheduled mid-November execution, Celia and another enslaved prisoner named Matt escaped from the Callaway County jail. Both were recaptured. The historian Melton McLaurin has speculated that Celia’s attorneys may have aided the escape to buy time for the Missouri Supreme Court to consider the appeal.
On December 14, 1855, the Missouri Supreme Court unanimously denied the stay. A week later, on December 21, 1855, Celia was hanged in Callaway County at the age of nineteen.5Missouri Digital Heritage. State of Missouri vs. Celia, a Slave
Why the Case Still Matters
Celia’s trial made explicit what slaveholding law had long practiced: the word “woman” in a statute protecting bodily autonomy did not include enslaved women. Judge Hall’s reasoning was circular but internally consistent. An enslaved person was property. Property could not be the victim of a crime committed by its owner. Therefore no crime had occurred, and no right of self-defense existed.
The case unfolded against a volatile backdrop. The Kansas-Nebraska Act had passed the year before, and the neighboring territory was sliding into the violence remembered as Bleeding Kansas. Two years after Celia’s execution, the U.S. Supreme Court decided Dred Scott v. Sandford, another Missouri case, holding that Black people had no rights white citizens were bound to respect. Celia’s trial sat in the same legal terrain, though it never drew the same national attention.