**The Untold Abuse of Black Female Slaves By White Men
Under the bondage of slavery women faced multiple forms of sexual abuse from slaveholders and the rape of enslaved women was not a crime in any slaveholding state. Sometimes this involved physical violence while at other times men used different methods to cajole women into sexual relationships including the promise of material benefits or threatening sale if women failed to consent. Sexual exploitation of enslaved women can be situated on a spectrum of experiences that overlapped or changed for each woman who experienced it ranging from violent penetrative rape to other forms of sexual harassment to formalized concubinage. Just as men’s sexual harassment varied so did enslaved woman’s responses to it.
The history of slavery in the United States is a dark and painful chapter marked by the exploitation dehumanization and brutalization of African-Americans. Within this harrowing narrative the abuse suffered by black female slaves at the hands of white men stands as a particularly egregious and overlooked aspect. In this video we are shedding light on this haunting reality exploring instances of appalling mistreatment and highlighting remarkable cases that underscore the resilience and strength of the individuals who endured these horrors.
The United States was in the middle of a civil war 150 years ago and while Abraham Lincoln had just issued the Emancipation Proclamation it would still be another 18 months until freedom finally came for the 4 million African-Americans held in bondage in the United States. The status of these people as nonhuman was so ingrained in the American psyche that even the rape of an enslaved woman could only be brought to court if it was considered to be a trespass on someone else’s property. On the other hand a man’s rape of his own enslaved woman could not be a crime. After all a man is free to do what he likes with his own property.
It was this very aspect of enslavement that led to former enslaved woman Harriet Jacobs’ lament:
“Slavery is terrible for men but it is far more terrible for women.”
In recent years genealogists looking into the ancestry of America’s first lady found Michelle Obama was the great great great great granddaughter of an illiterate field slave from Georgia named Melinia who gave birth at age 15 to a child by a white father most likely to be the slave owner’s son. As stories such as Melina’s are largely lost to history it is unclear how many Americans now living as white or black have African American ancestors who endured some form of sexual abuse. What we do know from the prevalence of references to this in the testimony of former slaves is that either sexual abuse was a common occurrence or the cases that occurred were so traumatic and the fear of abuse so great that these former slaves were unable to omit it from their description of enslavement.
An enslaved woman was a sex tool beneath the level of moral considerations. She was an economic good useful in addition to her menial labor for breeding more slaves. To attain that purpose the master mated her promiscuously according to his breeding plans. The master his son and other members of his family took turns with her to increase the family’s fortune and to satisfy his extramarital sexual desires. Guests and neighbors were also invited to this luxury. To combat the high rate of death among slaves plantation owners demanded females start having children at the age of 13. By the age of 20 the enslaved women would be expected to have about five children. As an inducement plantation owners promised freedom for enslaved females once they bore 15 kids.
If the enslaved woman was considered pretty she would be bought by a plantation owner and given special treatment in the house but often subjected to horrifying cruelty by the master’s wife including the beheading of a child because he was the product of an enslaved master affair. Often the plantation owner would entertain his friends by forcing the enslaved blacks to have orgies and the white men often would participate in the debauchery.
A certain group of enslaved women were deemed Jezebels by their owners. These women were assumed to be even more promiscuous than the other enslaved black women and were often subjected to sexual abuse multiple times throughout the day. While white men forced these Jezebels to have sex with them they insisted that it was the enslaved woman’s fault for being so promiscuous.
The brutal enslavers would also use black female slaves for gynecological research all the while not providing them with anesthesia. J. Marion Sims the father of modern gynecology purchased countless black women slaves and used them as guinea pigs for his untested surgical experiments. He repeatedly performed genital surgery on black women without anesthesia because according to him black women don’t feel pain. Anarcha one of those women was an African-American slave woman who was forced to regularly undergo surgical experiments while positioned on Sims’ table squatting on all fours and fully awake without the comfort of any anesthesia. It would be more than appropriate to credit Anarcha along with other nameless slave women as the mothers of gynecology.
Slave masters also had sex farms where they would rape black men women and children. The raping of black men was called buck breaking. Marriages among the African slaves were also not recognized by their white enslavers as the slaves females and males remained their property which they would use however they wanted whenever they wanted to.
The historical abuse of African female slaves has been nothing short of devastating. As early as the 1490s Christopher Columbus established trade in sex slaves on Hispaniola. Within 25 years of being colonized the population of Hispaniola natives declined dying from enslavement massacre or disease. In addition to putting the natives to work as slaves in his gold mines Columbus also sold sex slaves to his men some as young as nine. Columbus and his men also raided villages for sex and sport. In the year 1500 Columbus wrote:
“A hundred Castellanos are as easily obtained for a woman as for a farm and it is very general and there are plenty of dealers who go about looking for girls those from 9 to 10 are now in demand.”
Sex slavery and forced labor were among the many brutalities that Columbus and his crews inflicted on the native Taino people on the island of Hispaniola now the site of Haiti and the Dominican Republic.
By the antebellum years the fertility of enslaved women was examined by owners to make sure they were able to birth as many children as possible. Secretly slave owners would impregnate enslaved women and when the child was born and grew to an age where he could work on the fields they would take the very same children of their own blood and make slaves out of them. It was common for the slave male or female to be subordinated sexually to the master even white men with enslaved African males. Scholar Bernardette Bruton has shown light upon the sexual economy of slavery. Fertility also made a slave more valuable and therefore impregnating a slave was doubly profitable. That would be one more slave. The baby and the slave mother would be more profitable to sell.
A quote from Harriet Jacobs a former slave is:
“Women are considered of no value unless they continuously increase their owner’s stock. They are put on a par with animals.”
Slave owners desired complete control and domination over their slaves and engaging in sexual acts with them was one way to assert that dominance and proclaim to the slave that they had control over the slave’s body. As described by Harriet Jacobs about her master Dr. Flint loved money but he loved power more. Slaves were seen not as humans but as property. Since slaves were legally owned by their masters female sexuality was also seen as the property of the masters.
James Henry Hammond a plantation owner with more than 300 slaves oppressed his female slaves by sexually abusing them. He also intervened in the family lives of his female slaves with the aim of showing that he could control all aspects of their lives. Slavery was an experience of mental emotional psychological and physical rape. Torture came in many forms and affected both male and female slaves in various ways. When torture became too unbearable slaves took great actions to annihilate the pain. However these actions came at a high price and for many the cost proved to be fatal.
Women bore many burdens during slavery. In addition to coerced labor and punishment they had to take care of their children their families and they also faced the ever-present threat of sexual exploitation. In fact many of the punishments inflicted on women involved some form of sexual overtones. In many cases it seems that the overseer or master or other white person responsible for inflicting pain would experience some form of sexual excitement. Scarce clothing because of poverty bending over to work or lifting one’s dress to keep it clean were seen by the slaveholder in sexual terms. So Henry Bibb an enslaved African suggests reporting in his narrative that a master made the comment that he would rather paddle a slave woman than eat food.
Among all the punishments faced by enslaved women whippings were the most common or at least the most talked about. The whip used was made of plaited cow skin. Some overseers report that it was so strong it could take the skin off a horse’s back or lay marks in a deal board. At times women ran away to protest whippings or escape other mistreatment. Running away was looked at as a serious crime and many slaves were punished in various ways. Some female slaves were punished so badly that they were left to die. An observer remembered a woman lying down and groaning. Her left side where she had been most whipped appeared in a most mortifying state and almost covered with worms.
Slave owners and overseers also assaulted enslaved women with ebony brushes which were known to be far worse than thorn brushes. The back of one slave woman in Jamaica flogged with such a brush was described as being taken off down to her heels. Some women ran away while others destroyed the planter’s property. Killing livestock in the field was one such form of active resistance. They faced horrific punishments if caught including the cutting off of ears and the pulling out of teeth. Women who resisted by raising their hands to the master or any white person for that matter were punished severely. If not by death their hands would be amputated. This form of amputation would also be administered to slaves who stole. At Mal Bay in Jamaica a female slave with but only one hand the other having been cut off was as a reason for being accused by a white woman of striking her.
In some cases enslaved women did commit no offense but planters were most of the time blatantly sick and sadistic in the severity of the actions that they took. Physical punishment most times resulted from women’s refusal of slaveholders’ sexual advances. Many folks alluded to this violence when interviewed by the WPA. She attested that an overseer tied up and whipped her mother naked until blood gushed out of her skin and when she asked her mother what she did to the overseer to make him beat her that way the mother answered nothing. Little did she know as she soon discovered that her mother had been going through such horrid torture because she refused to be a wife to this man.
In one case in Jamaica a narrator describes a slave woman screaming and suspended by her wrists on a tree. She swayed back and forth. The observer saw no sign of whippings but upon looking closer he was horrified to see that the master was seemingly motionless and was holding a stick of fire in his hand to which he occasionally touched her with it as she swung.
One might be curious as to what type of person was behind this kind of abuse. Was it only men for instance who carried out such tortures? In fact white women also practiced and performed the acts of punishments. One would think that because of their gender similarities the white woman would have some form of compassion and pity for the unfortunate slave woman. However many whites during slavery in the Caribbean apparently did not consider slaves to be human. Domestic slave girls were the ones most often subjected to abuse by the white mistress in the home. These women were not viewed as women in low order. Blake reminds us but women of respectability and rank.
Another form of domestic punishment inflicted by white mistresses on enslaved women was to have the domestics kneel with their bare knees on pebbles and work at the same time in that manner. In one graphic incident two white sisters in Barbados were displeased at one of their female slaves. With their own garters they tied the young woman’s neck and heels and then beat her almost to death with the heels of their shoes. One of her eyes continued a long while afterward in danger of being lost.
Many women were unable to escape enslaver sexual assault particularly without being beaten as a result. Women who labored in plantation homes were at particular risk of sexual predators because they worked in close proximity to white men. A sexual assault victim as she entered just her 15th year Harriet Jacobs described her disgust for her enslaver Dr. Flint and mentioned her attempts to turn to her mistress Mary Norcom for support. Instead her jealous mistress responded with hostility and anger. Norcom’s response was typical of white women who regarded the real victims of sexual violence as Jezebels the invented hypersexualized persona white subscribed to enslaved black women.
The actions taken by the planter class or other whites at the time depicts the ill mentality and immense hatred possessed for the blacks whether male or female slaves. But chaotic punishments and assaults unmentioned though they were in legal laws or rules singled out women for the worst treatment of all slaves. The female slave’s misery was endless and her fate uncertain for she had even more to bear than the male slave.
However transitioning from the broader context of slavery’s grim tapestry we now shift our focus to the ghastly experiences of specific women in this dark history who in the unforeseeable suspense of time never knowing what was coming for them were sadly overtaken by the untellable sickening oppression that comes with colonization and slavery. While some survived and told their story others died and it wasn’t their fault they couldn’t make it through.
One of these remarkably sad encounters ever to take place in the history of slavery is the case of young Celia. The story of Celia is very not good. For 19-year-old Celia a slave on a Missouri farm 5 years of being repeatedly raped by her middle-aged owner was enough. She would take no further. Celia was executed for defending herself from the further harm of sexual abuse in the cruel hands of her master Robert Newsom.
Now let’s see reasons with Celia by knowing her story. Around 1820 Robert Newsom and his family left Virginia and headed west finally settling land along the Middle River in southern Callaway County Missouri. By 1850 according to the census Newsom owned 800 acres of land and livestock that included horses milk cows beef cattle hogs sheep and two oxen. Like the majority of Callaway County farmers Newsom also owned slaves five male slaves as of 1850.
During the summer of 1850 Newsom purchased from a slave owner in neighboring Audrain County a sixth slave a 14-year-old girl named Celia. Shortly after returning with Celia to his farm Newsom raped her. That was a first but definitely not a last. It immediately became apparent to Celia however that Newsom had purchased her primarily to serve as his concubine. For female slaves rape was an ever-present threat and far too often a reality.
Newsom had provided Celia with her own cabin a relatively spacious and solid brick structure located a mere 60 paces from his own home. Newsom may have also deliberately separated Celia the only black woman on the Newsom farm from her fellow slaves to prevent her from forming friendships or alliances with them. Court records show that over the next 5 years the rapes continued with Newsom repeatedly forcing himself on Celia against her will. He fathered one or both of the children born to Celia between 1851 and 1854.
Sometime before 1855 a real lover another one of Newsom’s slaves named George entered Celia’s life and they began a sexual relationship. When Celia became pregnant again in March 1855 she did not know which man was the father. The pregnancy had hurt George’s feelings and caused him to insist that Celia put an end to the pattern of sexual exploitation by Newsom which had continued to that time. George informed Celia that he would have nothing more to do with her if she did not quit the old man.
Celia approached Newsom’s daughters Virginia and Mary asking their help in getting Newsom to quit forcing her while she was sick. It is not clear whether either of the Newsom daughters made any attempt to intervene on Celia’s behalf but it is known that the sexual assaults continued. In desperation Celia begged Newsom to leave her alone at least through her pregnancy but the slave owner was unreceptive to her pleas.
On June 23rd 1855 Newsom told Celia he was coming to her cabin that night. Around 10 p.m. Newsom left his bedroom and walked the 50 yards usually engaged to Celia’s brick cabin. When Newsom told Celia it was time for sex she retreated to a corner of the cabin. He advanced toward her. Celia then grabbed a stick placed there earlier in the day. Celia raised the stick about as large as the upper part of a Windsor chair but not so long and struck her master hard over the head. Newsom groaned and sank down on a stool or towards the floor. Celia clubbed Newsom over the head a second time killing him.
After making sure he was dead Celia spent an hour or so pondering her next step. Finally she decided to burn Newsom’s body in her fireplace. She went outside to gather staves and used them to build a raging fire. Then she dragged the corpse over to the fireplace and pushed it into the flames. She kept the fire going through the night. In the early morning she gathered up bone fragments from the ashes and smashed them against the hearth stones then threw the particles back into the fireplace. A few larger pieces of bone she put under the hearth and under the floor between a sleeper and the fireplace. Shortly before daybreak Celia carried some of the ashes out into the yard and then went to bed.
In the morning as Newsom’s family was growing concerned about Robert’s disappearance Celia enlisted the help of Newsom’s grandson Coffee Wescott in shoveling ashes out of her fireplace and into a bucket. Coffee had testified later that he decided to help when the slave said she would give me two dozen walnuts if I would carry the ashes out. I said good lick. Following Celia’s instruction Coffee distributed the remains of his grandfather unknowingly along a path leading to the stables.
On the morning of the 24th Virginia Newsom searched for her father along nearby creek banks and coves fearing he might have drowned. By mid morning the search party grew to include several neighbors and Newsom’s son Harry. After fruitless hours of searching suspicion began to turn to George who it was thought might have been motivated to kill Newsom out of jealousy. William Powell an owner of both slaves and an adjoining 160 acre farm questioned George. George denied any knowledge of what might have happened to Newsom but then added suspiciously it was not worthwhile to hunt for him anywhere except close to the house. Faced with most likely severe threats George eventually provided additional information. He told Powell he believed the last walking Newsom had done was along the path leading from the house to the Negro cabin.
George’s comment immediately led investigators to the conclusion that Newsom had been killed in Celia’s cabin. When a search of Celia’s cabin failed to turn up Newsom’s body Powell and the others located Celia doing her regular duties in the kitchen of the Newsom home. Powell falsely claimed that George had told the search party that she knew where her master was hoping this approach might prompt a quick confession from Celia. Instead Celia denied any knowledge of her master’s fate. Faced with escalating threats including the threat of having her children taken away from her Celia continued to insist on her innocence. She undoubtedly understood that confessing to the murder of her master would be an even more serious threat to her relationship with her children.
Eventually however Celia admitted that Newsom had indeed visited her cabin seeking sex the previous night. She insisted that Newsom never entered her cabin but rather that she struck him as he leaned inside the window and he fell back outside and she saw nothing more of him. Finally after refusing for some time to tell anything more Celia promised to tell more if Powell would send Newsom’s two sons out of the room. When Harry Newsom and David Newsom left Celia confessed to the murder of Robert Newsom.
Following Celia’s confession the search party located Newsom’s ashes along the path to the stables. They also gathered bits of bones from Celia’s fireplace larger bone fragments from under the hearthstone and Newsom’s burnt buckle buttons and blackened pocketknife. The collected items were placed in a box for display during the inquest that was to come.
Acting on an affidavit filed by David Newsom the case of State of Missouri versus Celia a slave was just been born. Two justices of the peace six local residents comprising an inquest jury and three summoned witnesses all assembled at the Newsom residence on the morning of June 25th. While all due procedures and attestation of witnesses took place Celia reaffirmed in court that she killed her master but insisted that she did not intend to kill him when she struck him but only wanted to hurt him. The inquest jury quickly determined that probable cause existed that Celia feloniously and willfully murdered Robert Newsom and the slave girl was ordered taken to the Callaway County Jail in Fulton.
Doubts as to whether Celia could have pulled off her crime without help lingered and Callaway County Sheriff William Snell allowed two men Jefferson Jones and Thomas Schotman to conduct further questioning of Celia in her jail cell. Celia had only additionally narrated the history of rape and sexual exploitation that began soon after her arrival on the Newsom farm but this didn’t bolster their genuine concern nor humanity. However Celia had firmly denied that George played any role in Newsom’s death or the disposal of his body.
Celia’s trial had come at a time of heightened tensions over the issue of slavery. In 1854 Congress had passed the Kansas-Nebraska Act which repealed the Missouri Compromise of 1820 and allowed settlers in those territories to decide for themselves whether to permit slavery within their boundaries. Judge Hall’s jury instructions made an acquittal all but impossible. He rejected all nine proposed defense instructions that addressed the question of motive or degree of culpability. Instead of suggesting any viable self-defense argument Hall instructed jurors that the defendant had no right to kill Newsom because he came into her cabin to demand for sex that she’s his property.
Christopher Gordon director of library and collections at the Missouri Historical Society in St. Louis called the trial a sham. Almost everyone on the jury was either pro-slavery or they owned slaves themselves. The thought of a slave and let alone a female slave getting away with something like this was not anything they would permit. The defense tried very hard to play on sympathy and cast Robert Newsom as a predator but the racial politics of the day won out. Although slave law had come in the course of the 19th century to recognize a slave’s right to use force to protect her life it had not extended this right to include protection against sexual assault which implies firmly that the raping of one slave was legal.
On November 1 1855 the Glasgow Weekly Times reported that Celia had been found guilty in Callaway County Circuit Court of murder in the first degree for the murder of her master. The jury had sentenced her to death by hanging. Though her case was appealed to the Missouri Supreme Court in jail awaiting her execution young pregnant Celia delivered a stillborn.
As the date for her execution approached still no word had come from Jefferson City on her appeal filed in the Missouri Supreme Court. The possibility that she might be hanged before her appeal was decided seemed ever more real to Celia’s defense team and whoever else she might count among her supporters. Something had to be done.
On November 11th 5 days before her scheduled date with the gallows Celia and another inmate were removed from the Callaway County jail either with the assistance or the knowledge of her defense lawyers. The defense team in a letter to Supreme Court Justice Abel Leonard written less than a month after her escape noted that Celia was taken out of jail by someone who was very much interested in her behalf owing to the circumstances of her act. Celia was returned in late November anonymously only after her scheduled execution date had passed.
Following her return Judge Hall set a new execution date of December 21st a date the defense hoped would give the Supreme Court time to issue its decision on their appeal. They were wrong. The judge was hellbent on sending the young girl to the gallows. The Supreme Court ruled against Celia in her appeal. In their December 14th order the state justices said they thought it proper to refuse the prayer of the petitioner having found no probable cause for her appeal.
Interrogated on the eve of her execution Celia continued to insist that she had acted alone and that she had not intended to kill Newsom that night. Pregnant ill and having suffered from Newsom’s abuse for more than 5 years something inside her had simply snapped.
Celia confessed:
“As soon as I struck him the devil got into me and I struck Newsom with the stick until he was dead and then rolled him in the fire and burned him up.”
Celia still only 19 years of age was executed by hanging on 21st December 1855. Her case according to the legal historian and federal judge A. Leon Higginbotham was even more venal and racist than the more famous Missouri slave case Dred Scott versus Sanford 1857. Unlike Scott who was ultimately freed and who died of natural causes Higginbotham argues Celia was executed because the Missouri courts held that a slave woman had no virtue that the law would protect against a master’s lust.
The abuse of black female slaves by white men during the historical slave era is a most distressing reality that demands acknowledgement and unhurried reflection. By examining historical instances of mistreatment and celebrating the resilience of remarkable individuals we can strive to comprehend the magnitude of the injustice inflicted upon black women. It is crucial to confront this painful history with honesty ensuring that the voices and experiences of those who suffered are not relegated to the shadows of the past.
