| Creative Nonfiction Investigation of a Chattel Enslavement Murder Mystery The 1855 Murder Case of Missouri versus Celia, an Enslaved WomanAn Exercise in Historical Imaginationby Alexis Brooks de VitaPublished by: Fiction4All This book is written in English No. words: 103415 Your Buying Options: Ebook Price: $6.95 Buy this book now!
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| STORY DESCRIPTION The 1855 Murder Case of Missouri versus Celia, an Enslaved Woman: An Exercise in Historical Imagination reconstructs and sets in motion known and suspected details, rebuilding the elided background story behind the conviction of an enslaved teen found guilty of bludgeoning and burning to death her owner. A middle-aged widower bought Celia for sexual usage that began in the first hour of her purchase; he fathered her three children in quick succession. After five years of sexual entrapment on his isolated farm, as the child Celia entered legal womanhood, someone brutally murdered her enslaver and told the posse to force a confession from Celia. The judge who decided the handling of the case suppressed testimony and struck exonerating evidence. The political climate and social tensions of pre-Civil War Missouri did not favor justice for an enslaved young woman who confessed, even under torture, to murdering her owner and mutilating his remains, though those acquainted with the case believed she could not have committed the deed. But why would Celia confess and then stick to her coerced confession, claiming that Satan made her do it? Who else might have harbored motives to brutalize and burn to death Celia's enslaver and then leave her to be condemned to hang? U.S. history favors belief in Celia's forced confession, but The 1855 Murder Case of Missouri versus Celia, an Enslaved Woman, interrogates the circumstances that produced it. Keywords related to this title - click on a keyword to find more, related stories chattel enslavement enslaved girls enslaved women U.S. history African American history slavery law
miscarriage of justice Author information: Born in the Watts Projects a few years before the Riots, Alexis Brooks de Vita lived in Uganda under Idi Amin Dada and was sent to school in Switzerland to escape his coup, traveling through France, Italy, Hungary, and Russia while it was still the Soviet Union. She has two daughters and two sons who have traveled with her in Europe and Uganda. Her degrees are in the Comparative Literature of women of African descent in English, French, Italian, and Spanish. She is the author of Mythatypes: Signatures and Signs of African/Diaspora and Black Goddesses; The 1855 Murder Case of Missouri versus Celia, an Enslaved Woman: An Exercise in Historical Imagination. Her publications with Fiction4All include Left Hand of the Moon, Dante's Inferno: A Wanderer in Hell, and the Books of Joy Trilogy: Burning Streams, Blood of Angels and Chain Dance. She is the contributing editor of two anthologies: Love and Darker Passions and Tales in Firelight and Shadow.
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