Celia, a Slave Read online

  Whatever the intent of Judge Hall in assembling this particular array of legal talent to provide Celia’s defense, there were two factors in Jameson’s life that might have given him pause had his strategy been to obtain a correct, perfunctory trial. The first was Jameson’s family. Jameson was the father of three daughters, the oldest of whom, Elizabeth, was fourteen in 1855, while Sarah, the middle girl, was twelve. Hall may well have considered the possibility that Jameson, though himself a slaveholder, as the father of two adolescent girls might develop a certain amount of sympathy for Celia. Jameson’s relationship to his daughters may have had no influence upon his attitude toward Celia. Certainly the fact that Robert Newsom was the father of two daughters who resided in his household had not influenced his attitudes about or conduct toward Celia. Nevertheless the circumstances of the case, especially Celia’s youth and Newsom’s undeniable sexual exploitation of her, increased the possibility that Jameson would develop some empathy toward Celia because of his daughters. The possibility was increased by the second factor, the fact that since his retirement from politics Jameson had become seriously interested in the ministry and had studied for and received ordination in the Christian church. Such a considerable investment of time and effort in religious studies at this late stage of Jameson’s career raised the possibility that Jameson might be inclined to explore seriously the moral implications of the case. That he himself had owned female slaves, and very well may have owned a twenty-one-year-old female slave at the time, would not necessarily have deterred him from doing so. In fact, if Jameson took seriously the owner’s moral obligation to treat his slaves well, as did many of the southern clergy who sought to reform the institution they believed God ordained, he may have felt obliged to do so. His serious interest in religion raised the possibility that he might decide to mount something beyond the usual defense on behalf of a client, who, though a slave, appeared to be morally, if not legally, innocent of the crime with which she was charged.10

  Certainly events within the Disciples of Christ had presented anyone seriously considering entering its ministry with the moral dimension of the slavery issue. The denomination, which had developed from the earlier Campbellite Presbyterian movement of the southwestern frontier, was by 1845 divided into three camps. In the deep South, Disciples saw no moral dilemma in the holding of human chattels, while in the North a small but growing abolitionist faction was increasing its attacks upon the institution. Caught in the middle of this doctrinal warfare were the moderates of the North, especially moderates of the border states of Kentucky and Missouri. The battle had been joined in earnest in 1845 when Disciples leader Alexander Campbell published a series of articles defending slavery in the Harbinger, the denomination’s journal. The Campbell articles drew an immediate response from abolitionists within the denomination, and by 1854 the more radical element had established its own paper, North-Western Christian Magazine. Both abolitionists and supporters of slavery aimed their propaganda at the moderates of the border states, where the church was especially strong. Because of both their strength in numbers and their strategic geographic position, border state members represented a potentially decisive minority that both abolitionists and proslavery advocates hoped to convert to their position.

  Aware that the slavery issue threatened the continued existence of the national denomination, Campbell, who personally opposed slavery, sought to defuse the issue. In an effort to prevent the Disciples from splitting into separate, regional denominations, as had the Baptists, Methodists, and Presbyterians, Campbell and his supporters sought to weather the storm by refusing to make slavery an issue of faith, declaring instead that members were free to hold whatever opinions about the institution their consciences dictated. Like northern Democrats with their doctrine of popular sovereignty, and for much the same reasons, Campbell insisted that slavery was a political rather than a religious issue. Throughout the growing denominational crisis, Campbell doggedly maintained that “as American citizens, the members of our churches have the same political rights with the members of all communities. They may become ‘Whigs’ or ‘Democrats,’ ‘Liberty’ or ‘Pro-Slavery men,’ according to their views of political expedience and propriety. On these views we all have our opinions.”11

  Thus in the summer of 1855 nothing in the doctrines of the Christian church prevented Jameson from defending Celia aggressively. As an ordained Disciples minister, he would have been fully aware of the debate over slavery within the church, and as a former Congressman he would have been fully aware of the political significance of the slavery question. This was especially true because of his Missouri residency, for despite Campbell’s effort to defuse the issue, by 1855 border state members were badly divided over slavery, even more so than the denomination as a whole. Whatever his personal feelings about slavery in that summer, Jameson would have approached Celia’s case fully aware of its potential implications for the manner in which his fellow churchmen and residents of Callaway County, perhaps all Missourians, regarded slavery.

  There is no evidence to indicate Jameson’s opinion about the guilt or innocence of Celia before she became his client, although he certainly would have been aware of her deed almost the moment it was committed. In a town the size of Fulton it would have been impossible for members of the legal fraternity to have long remained ignorant of the case. What the evidence discloses is only that Judge Hall appointed Jameson and his assistants as defense counsel on August 16, the same day on which Celia was formally indicted by a grand jury. Because her trial was set for the circuit court’s October term, Hall’s appointment forced Jameson and his colleagues into the immediate preparation of a defense for their client. Simultaneously, court officials prepared for the circuit court’s approaching fall term, including arrangements for Celia’s trial. Most of the preparation fell to George Bartey (also spelled Bartley), clerk of the court. The son of a Scotch immigrant, George Bartey moved to Missouri as a young man from his native Virginia. He served as deputy clerk of the court, then as clerk. By late September, Bartey had prepared summonses for the jurors and witnesses for Celia’s trial, and they had been delivered by Sheriff William Snell.12

  On the morning of October 9, 1855, while thousands of antislavery Kansas settlers defied the recently elected pro-slavery territorial government, Sheriff William Snell delivered Celia to the Callaway County courthouse for trial before the circuit court. For an unlettered slave approximately nineteen years of age who may have been pregnant at the time, the solemn courtroom must have been a terrifying and hostile place. She faced the unavoidable stares of strangers and the family and friends of the man she stood accused of murdering. The courts of the State of Missouri were not of her world. She knew about them only what her lawyers would have told her in preparation for the trial. Although there is no record of such conferences, the defense’s detailed knowledge of Celia’s circumstances evident in the trial record indicate that they occurred. It is also unlikely that such an experienced trial attorney as Jameson would have entered the courtroom without a thorough personal interrogation of his client.

  Whatever their contact with Celia, the defense attorneys were the only persons in the courtroom from whom Celia might expect the slightest sympathy. The twelve-man jury, drawn from Callaway County’s white male population, had as its foreman William J. Selby, a forty-six-year-old justice of the peace from Cedar Township. The son of a Methodist preacher from Maryland, Selby arrived in Missouri in 1824. By 1850 he was a successful farmer whose real estate and livestock holdings were worth approximately $3,000.13In addition to Judge William Hall and the clerk, George Bartey, court officials present included Sheriff Snell and circuit attorney R. G. Prewitt.

  Although the court records refer only to “counsel for the defense,” it was Jameson who presented Celia’s case to the jury. Given Jameson’s reputation as a formidable jury advocate and the youth and inexperience of his colleagues, it is highly improbable that either Boulware or Kouns argued the case. Also, with Jameson pr
esenting the case for the defense to the jury, Prewitt faced several disadvantages. As a resident of Howard County, the next county upriver from Callaway beyond neighboring Boone County, it was unlikely that Prewitt was known personally by members of the jury, whereas Jameson was a well known and respected local figure. Prewitt was also a relatively inexperienced prosecutor, having served as circuit attorney for less than two years.14

  The jury impaneled and sworn “to try the issue of whether defendant was guilty of the crime of murder charged against her,” was, like the inquest jury that had first indicted Celia, typical of the male residents of Callaway County. Their names reflected the essentially British heritage of the county’s residents: William J. Selby (foreman), William Givens, Stephen Gilbert, William Lloyd, Benjamin Sheets, Thomas Pratt, John Culbretson, William Craig, W. J. Ficklin, William P. Selby, George Hossman, and Samuel Maties. The members ranged in age from Stephen Gilbert, thirty-four, to William Selby, seventy-five, the foreman’s father. Only one, Thomas Pratt, forty-three, was a native of Missouri. Most, seven in all, had been born in Kentucky, then migrated westward, some as adults, some as children. All of the jurors were married, except for the elder Selby, who had lost his wife. All had children; most had large families. In 1850 the younger Selby had six children, whose ages ranged from sixteen to five. Maties had four children: Pratt, three; Craig, four; Culbretson, seven; Sheets, eight; Givens, two; Ficklin, three; and Lloyd, four. In the same year a son, his wife, and two grandchildren resided with the elder Selby. Provided the children of jurors listed in the 1850 census survived in 1855, five of the jurors, including the foreman, would have had daughters approximately Celia’s age. Whether this fact reflects the normal pattern of gender distribution in the large families favored by Callaway’s residents, or the skill of the defense at jury selection cannot be known. The nature of the defense’s presentation, however, suggests that the latter was the case.

  The jurors were not particularly prosperous, although three had substantial holdings. None of them owned in 1850 real estate as valuable as that of Newsom. The holdings of William J. Selby, valued at $2,000, and of William Givens, valued at $3,000, were the largest. One juror, Samuel Maties, owned no property in 1850, four others held real estate valued at $500 or less. All were farmers, including the elder Selby, also a Methodist minister. At least four of the men owned slaves: Gilbert, Givens, Sheets, and Craig. Givens, the wealthiest of the twelve, in 1850 appears to have owned a slave family, a male twenty-two and a female twenty-six, and three children, age six and under. William Craig, whose real estate holdings were valued at $1,600, owned fourteen slaves, four adults and ten children. Benjamin Sheets’s slave holdings in 1850 resembled those of Newsom, three male adults, one woman, and two children. Stephen Gilbert listed a male slave, fourteen, in 1850. Thus a jury of farmers, all fathers, on the whole less prosperous than Newsom, less than half of whom appear themselves to have been slaveholders, would determine Celia’s guilt or innocence. From the perspective of the defense, the jury was about as good as could be expected.15

  Preliminaries consumed most of the first day. Counsel for the defense pled Celia not guilty to the charge of murdering her late master, Robert Newsom, and announced Celia “ready for trial, and prayed herself upon her God and her Country.” Thereafter the court adjourned, Judge Hall sending the jurors home and Celia back to her cell.16 When on the following morning the trial resumed, the courtroom drama played quickly and predictably. The prosecution called as its first witness Jameson’s nephew, Colonel Jefferson Jones. Under questioning from the prosecution Jones related his conversation with Celia after she had been indicted and jailed. He revealed that Celia admitted she “had been having sexual intercourse” with Newsom. Jones also testified that Celia had told him that George had demanded that she have no further sexual relations with their master. He then described the manner in which Celia had killed Newsom and the way in which she disposed of the body. The entirety of his testimony for the prosecution was descriptive, lacking the slightest reference to a possible motive for the crime.

  Jameson’s cross-examination quickly established a key element of a planned defense that became fully evident only after all testimony had been heard. He immediately focused on the sexual nature of the relationship between Celia and Newsom, forcing Jones to admit that Celia had told him that Newsom had raped her on the return trip from Audrain County immediately after his purchase of her, that he had continued to demand sexual favors of her throughout the years she resided on the Newsom farm, and that he had fathered her children. Jameson’s detailed knowledge of Celia’s relationship with Newsom strongly indicates that Celia had confided in her defense counsel, for it is unlikely that the prosecution would have provided him with this information. Evidently uneasy with this line of questioning, Jones responded with tentative answers, attempting to foil Jameson’s efforts to portray Newsom as a fiend. To Jameson’s question about the rape, Jones replied that he “can’t say positively whether Celia said the accused had forced her on the way home” and that he did “not know with certainty whether she told me so.” The nature of the colonel’s responses imply Jameson’s questions, which were not recorded because at this time trial proceedings were summarized rather than recorded verbatim. It is clear, however, that Jameson continued to press him on this issue, attempting, through Jones, to supply a reason for Celia’s actions.

  Jones’s rather weak contention that “he had heard” that Newsom had raped Celia was certainly a response to Jameson’s question that if Celia had not told him Newsom raped her, who had. The summarized exchange between Jones and Jameson about the rape implies that Jameson raised the issue based on information supplied to him by Celia. Jones had not mentioned the rape in his testimony for the prosecution, for obvious reasons, and made every effort to minimize its significance without denying that it took place. His contention that he could not “say positively” whether Celia told him of the rape was a transparently convenient lapse of memory. A white lawyer sent by a judge to question a slave woman who had murdered her master would have recalled whether she said her master raped her on the date of her purchase. Jones may not have replied so tentatively in an effort to convict Celia, or to spare the reputation of Robert Newsom, however. He may well have been reluctant to testify about the matter because Newsom’s two daughters were present, and he sought to spare their feelings.

  In addition to supplying his client a motive, Jameson also sought to obtain some sympathy for Celia, a fact evident from Jones’s response to a question that came immediately after his testimony about Newsom’s sexual involvement with his slave. The question was obviously about the age of the accused, for Jones answered that she “said she was about nineteen years old at the time we were conversing.” With his cross-examination of Jones, Jameson had established the fact of Newsom’s continuing sexual relations with the defendant, the fact that she did not willingly consent, and the probability that she had been raped as a fourteen year old. He also pressed Jones on Celia’s intent at the time she struck Newsom, forcing him to testify that Celia had told him that she “did not intend to kill, but only to hurt him [Newsom].” This line of questioning brought an objection from the prosecution, which Judge Hall sustained. Jones’s response, though legible in the trial record, is lined out in the clerk’s original notes, and the response is dropped from the official record, which was compiled after the trial’s completion.17

  The prosecution next called Virginia Waynescot to the stand. Given Jameson’s line of questioning in his cross-examination of Jefferson Jones, Newsom’s older daughter undoubtedly approached the witness stand with mixed emotions—a desire for revenge and the conviction of her father’s killer, combined with concern for the reputation of the deceased, and by extension, of his family. Following the circuit attorney’s lead, Virginia related the family’s search for the missing father and the details of the searchers’ efforts to recover his remains once they discovered his fate. Again, the prosecution asked no questions about why C
elia, a trusted servant, would commit such a violent act. And again Jameson returned to theme of motive in his cross-examination. Virginia Waynescot’s answers suggest a set of questions about where Newsom slept and where he had been in the home before the murder. Clearly, Jameson sought to establish in the mind of the jury that Newsom often abandoned his bed for Celia’s, thus Virginia’s response that she “did not notice the [father’s] bed. Sister made the bed up.” Jameson also again sought to obtain sympathy for his client, forcing Virginia to admit that Celia “took sick in February. Had been sick ever since.” Jameson did not, however, directly ask Virginia about her father’s sexual relationship with Celia. To have done so would have been a gross violation of the Victorian sexual mores of the period, a fact an experienced jury advocate such as Jameson would have fully appreciated. With female witnesses, implication was sufficient. He would observe the social mores of the community, only to return to more explicit questioning with male witnesses.18

  Young Coffee Waynescot next appeared for the prosecution. Under the prosecuting attorney’s guidance, the adolescent Coffee related to the jury his horrifying story of removing his grandfather’s ashes from Celia’s cabin. Jameson’s cross-examination was brief and once again without direct reference to Newsom’s habitual sexual exploitation of Celia. Once more Jameson focused on where Newsom customarily slept in the home and whether he had gone to bed that night. Coffee, who slept in his mother’s room, provided little information Jameson could use to build a defense for his client.