In Mclaurin's book "Celia, A Slave," there are moral dilemmas that are inherent in slavery. Slaves were seen to be less than human, and therefore they did not get the same treatment that white people got. Celia, in the book, was accused of murdering her 'master,' and the way that she was treated at her trial (and before, as a slave in the Newsom household) indicates how much corruption is seen in humanity. Slavery is much more complex than many people realize. There are subtleties and issues that belong to it and that plagued both the slaves and their masters. One of these was the ways in which the masters controlled their slaves. Another was how the slaves chose to resist this control. This was a battle that began early on in slavery and did not end until all of the slaves were set free. .

             Because of this, these things was very important to the issue of slavery, but many that are not familiar with the slavery issue do not realize that there are many facets to it, and that control and resistance was a large part of this. Celia did not want to be 'defiled' by the master, and so she fought back and killed him. Naturally, this would have been more understood had she been a white woman, and much easier on her had she been a white man, but being a black woman and a slave, she did not have the same rights that other people had.

             Masters tried to control their slaves, and slaves resisted, but they did not usually resist too much, because they knew how much they would be punished and made too suffer for too much resistance. One must remember that these people did not want to be slaves, and it would be logical for them to resist this. However, it is also important to remember that there could only be so much resistance before many of them were severely punished. That punishment was not wanted, either, so the slaves could only resist to a certain extent before they found themselves pushing too far and ending up in areas that were much more dangerous than simply being forced to work the way that slaves were.