ST. LOUIS – Missouri Governor Mike Parson announced several pardons and commutations on Friday, including a posthumous pardon for a former Missouri slave that was executed over 160 years ago.
Celia Newsom, a former Missouri slave woman executed for killing her master in 1855, was one of 16 individuals to receive a pardon from Parson before his term ends in January. The pardon comes nearly 169 years following Newsom’s execution.
According to Douglas O. Linder from UMKC’s School of Law , 19-year-old Celia Newsom killed her slave master, Robert Newsom, by striking him in the head twice with a stick following several years of sexual abuse. After the murder, Newsom burned his body in a fire place in an attempt to hide the evidence.
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Newsom’s trial came at a time of high tensions over slavery. Although there was a law in Missouri that allowed women to argue self-defense by resisting such assaults, Newsom faced an unfair trial and was later convicted of first-degree murder by an all-white jury of men. She was sentenced to death by hanging and was executed on Dec. 21, 1855.