750-1000words book review
lishabaiyi
slaveryinNewFrance1.pptxKanien'kehá:ka (OKA): issues are ongoing
Ongoing illegal land development
Installation of pipelines without consent
Petition to halt to the Land Development on Disputed Kanien'kehá:ka Territory
https://www.change.org/p/indigenous-and-northern-affairs-canada-halt-to-the-land-development-on-disputed-kanien-keh%C3%A1-ka-territory?recruiter=10108708&utm_source=share_petition&utm_medium=copylink&utm_campaign=share_petition&utm_term=autopublish.instant_experiences.variant
Ellen Gabriel, “The Right to Protest the Doctrine of Discovery: Its Signs, Slurs, and Influences,”
Erasure of Slavery from Canadian History Texts
In the news this week
Parent complaint
US slavery represented in Quebec school books, but not the history of slavery in Quebec
Misrepresentation of history
Erasure of history
“diminishes basic standards of truth”
Ongoing colonial project
Rachel Zellers, historian
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/textbook-slavery-curriculum-quebec-1.4301989
Historian Brett Rushforth
Indigenous slaves in New France
5% of population
Performing essential labour: domestics, farmers, dock loaders, millers, semi-skilled & urban trades
By 1725, half of all colonists who owned a home, also owned an indigenous slave
“A Little Flesh We Offer You”
Unique to time and place
To cement French-indigenous alliances
Allied indigenous groups offered captives as symbols of emerging partnership
Gift giving part of indigenous diplomacy
The opposite of warfare, the giving rather than taking a life
Historian Rushforth
Captives integrated into indigenous families through ceremony
In the northeast, slaves did not pass their status to their offspring
Adoptees replaced village members lost of warfare or murder
Dead could be symbolically revived
The gift of captives brings enemies together: 1) to revive the dead 2) to establish alliances through gifts to cover their graves
Using the language of kinship, blending of family interests, satisfying the demands of customary justice, symbolizing friendship
Not accepting captives was a violation of custom, destroying rather than forming alliances
1709 Raudot Ordinance
Legalizing indigenous slavery in New France
Guarantees of ownership
Panis actually referred to a great number of Plains groups, none of which can be said with any certainty to be linked to modern Pawnees
Afua Cooper
The secret of slavery in Canada
Institutionalized for 206 years & then erased
1628-1833
1628 David Kirke arrives in Quebec with 9 year old African boy, 1633 baptized as Olivier Le Jeune
Scarcity of labour
Slaves had a variety of occupations
Intrinsic part of economic ladder
Atlantic Slave Trade
Cooper situates Angelique’s story within larger history
Initiated by the Portuguese in 1444
Ends 1860s
15 million Africans stolen into slavery
Decline of white slavery
Angelique born in Portugal, arrives in Montreal in 1725, 20 years old, already sold twice
Imperialism in North America?
Afua Cooper’s book shortcoming
Imperialism in Africa but not North America?
Analysis of colonization of Montreal missing
“Angelique’s Montreal” founded by missionaries
Erasure of Haudenosaunee sovereignty and title
Fortification of Montreal to keep “enemies” out: The Iroquois of the Five Nations and the English
The erasure of indigenous people by historians who are doing important work retrieving other erased and forgotten histories
Ubiquity of slave ownership
Founding fathers & mothers
“almost everyone” in colonial society owned slaves
Merchant groups owned the most
Governor Rigaud de Vaudreuil (1703-1725) owned 11 slaves; Marquis de Beaugarmois (1726-1746) owned 27
Many “common” people owned slaves
1734 population in New France 37 716; 3600-4000 slaves
Francois Poulin de Franchville
Grandfather first seigneur
Privileged, powerful & influential
Colonizer
Merchant
Businessman, entrepreneur
Fur trader
Monopoly to exploit iron resources
Local lord
Slave owner (2 Panis & Marie-Joseph Angelique
Therese de Couagne de Francheville
Also from a wealthy mercantile family with connections to the military, church & judiciary
The donation: couple makes each other heir
M. Francheville dies Nov. 28 1733
His widow receives all his material possessions, including the slaves
Marie-Joseph Angelique
Hates her mistress
Mme. Francheville treated Angelique harshly
We have no description of Angelique, nor we know her name when she arrives in Montreal
Renamed at baptism
Gives birth to three children, none survive
Two lovers, Jacques Cesar & Claude Thibault (white indentured labourer)
When M. Francheville dies, Angelique asks Mme to leave; request is denied
Question of whether M. Francheville had promised Angelique her freedom on his death?
While he was alive, Mme. whipped Angelique on a regular basis
Was it because the husband “frequented the bondswoman’s bed?”
At his death, the beatings stop
But things get worse, Angelique declares war on her mistress
Mme Francheville sells Angelique (for 600 pounds of gunpowder) to someone in the West Indies
“Fire!”
Saturday April 10 1734
Angelique alerts all to a fire
Less than 3 hours after the first curling of smoke, 46 building including the hospital lay in flames
Wood shingles
Chimney fires
Everyone either battling the flames or saving their things from their burning homes
Angelique helps to save furniture with Thibault
Mme Francheville accuses Angelique of setting the fire
Angelique denies it
Discussion in the hospital courtyard, Angelique is there
The town crier arrives and accuses Angelique of setting the fire
Repetition establishes the rumour as fact
Why does Angelique not run away?
City gates are closed
Thibault vanishes into the smoke filled air
Montreal, 1734
Proceedings against Angelique
April 11 arrested
June 21st hanged
Investigations & interrogation from April 12 to June 4 (death sentence)
Appeal in Quebec ends June 12
Return to Montreal June 15 to June 21, interrogation, torture and final execution
The Trial
24 witnesses called
No one saw her do it
She denies all allegations
Marie-Manon, indigenous slave belonging to neighbor Sieur de Berey
Amable Moniere (5 years old)
People testifying all had their homes destroyed by fire
Verdict
Found guilty of setting fire to her mistresses home & burning 45 other buildings
Hand to be cut off
Thrown alive in a fire
Burned alive: no chance to be redeemed & enter paradise
Ashes thrown to the four winds, spirit to roam the earth forever in agony & despair
Modified on appeal: no cutting of hand, not to be burned alive
Torture
After sentence, torture
Brodequins
Laced boots
Knees & legs crushed
Angelique breaks under torture
Insists she acted alone
Gallows
Gallows placed in Rue St. Paul
Middle of devastated area
Corpse hung for hours for all to see
Then cut down from the noose and placed on a fire
When the flames cooled, ashes flung to the four winds
Mathieu Leveille
Hangman & torturer
From Martinique, lives in Quebec
Killed a fellow slave
Choice be a hangman or death
Present at the Quebec appeal, travels with Angelique to Montreal, administers the torture, wraps the rope around her neck
Was Angelique guilty?
Many commentators (contemporaries & historians) think that Angelique set the fire
Historian Cooper: Angelique had good reason to set the fire, Mme. Francheville’s refusal to give her freedom, selling her to the West Indies
Thibault betrays her
Angelique wants to run away because of slavery itself
Afua Cooper
Angelique did it
Arson as a tool of resistance commonly used by enslaved Africans
Angelique left us no written sources
She left us an oral history of resistance
Angelique trial transcripts as the first slave narrative in North America
Le Rouge and le Noir...Au Service du Blanc
Marquise Lepage, director
Rebel or scapegoat?
Angelique as a beautiful and free woman unwilling to accept her slave condition
Inconsistencies & contradictions in numerous testimonies
That Angelique helped her mistresses remove her belonging rather than flee is perplexing
Scapegoat to set an eloquent example for all women & men who might be tempted to rebel
Denyse Beaugrand-Champagne
Published 2004 in French
Conclusion: fire most likely accidental
Poorly cleaned chimneys
Cook fire by Marie-Manon, the neighboring slave, as the source of fire
Marie-Manon’s accusation of Angelique: to divert attention elsewhere to avoid punishment
Class film
2017 Angelique mural in Montreal
Great Unsolved Mysteries in Canadian History “Torture and the Truth: Angelique and the Burning of Montreal”
http://www.canadianmysteries.ca/sites/angelique/accueil/indexen.html
