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kassn's review against another edition
3.0
I’m not the biggest fan of the writing style, and I found it’s organization rather odd, but it nonetheless imparts valuable accounts of the long-hidden history of Canadian slavery.
jandi's review against another edition
4.0
This is a history book, not historical based fiction. It is not a biography either. The book centers on Marie Joseph Angelique, a black domestic slave who possibly initiated a fire that destroyed a large section of Montreal in 1734. The author brings Angelique's voice back to life through trial records and other legal documents available from the time, and while the tone is fairly academic, her voice comes through clear and strong. Did Angelique commit the crime she was punished for? We'll never know, although I personally was shocked at second hand hearsay being used as evidence in the trial against her.
Parallel to Angelique's story, the author also provides extensive detail on the history of slavery in Canada. Because it happened, and there is no excusing it. Through newspaper ads, bills of sale, court records, etc., the author provides a glimpse on the role and treatment of slaves in Canada. Some sections are fairly dry, but the author highlights key events and ideas to avoid getting lost in the details.
Parallel to Angelique's story, the author also provides extensive detail on the history of slavery in Canada. Because it happened, and there is no excusing it. Through newspaper ads, bills of sale, court records, etc., the author provides a glimpse on the role and treatment of slaves in Canada. Some sections are fairly dry, but the author highlights key events and ideas to avoid getting lost in the details.
lbelow's review against another edition
challenging
emotional
informative
reflective
sad
slow-paced
5.0
This is one of the best books I've ever read. It is filled with a wealth of information, giving flesh and voice to a condemned woman while also illuminating the buried history of slavery in Canada, and bringing old Montréal to life. I highly recommend it!
Content Warnings
Graphic: Slavery, Colonisation, and Torture
Moderate: Injury/Injury detail and Fire/Fire injury
Minor: Child death, Classism, Confinement, Racial slurs, Genocide, Sexual violence, Rape, Racism, and Physical abuse
yourstrulytay's review against another edition
dark
informative
sad
medium-paced
5.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Violence, Slavery, Racism, Torture, Forced institutionalization, Confinement, Colonisation, Racial slurs, and Fire/Fire injury
Moderate: Sexual violence, Sexual harassment, and Sexual assault
nickfourtimes's review against another edition
4.0
1) "In the post-Conquest period, a woman skilled in housework could fetch between £30 and £50. The woman described in this ad would likely have commanded a good price:
'Quebec Gazette, February 23, 1769
Mr. Prenties has to sell a negro woman, aged 25 years, with a mulatto male child, 9 months old. She was formerly the property of General Murray; she can be well recommended for a good house servant; handles milk well and makes butter to perfection.'"
2) "Interestingly, [Simcoe's July 1793] act did not prevent the sale of slaves across international borders. Many slaveholders saw this loophole and [...] sold their slaves into New York.
Upper Canadian slaves who were hoping to be freed by Simcoe's bill had to look for their freedom elsewhere. In 1787, the Northwest Territory (Michigan, Indiana, Ohio, Illinois, Wisconsin, and part of Minnesota) issued an ordinance prohibiting slavery. Vermont and other parts of New England had also abolished slavery by this date. And, in 1799, New York made provisions for the gradual abolition of slavery. As a result, many Upper Canadian enslaved Blacks escaped into these free territories. So numerous were some of these former Canadians in American cities that, in Detroit, for example, a group of former Upper Canadian slaves formed a militia in 1806 for the defence of the city against the Canadians. They also fought against Canada in the War of 1812.
If Simcoe's bill had a redeeming feature, it was the article that prohibited the importation of new slaves into the province. This meant, in effect, that slavery would decline, as it could not be expanded through importation. Perhaps more important, it also meant that any foreign slaves would be immediately freed upon reaching the soil of Upper Canada. That was what began the Underground Railroad for enslaved Americans. By the War of 1812, they had heard of this novel situation and many began making the trek northward. The paradox is inescapable: at the same time, many Upper Canadian slaves were making the trek southward to freedom in Michigan and New England."
3) "Obviously the slave woman's name was not Marie-Joseph Angélique when she came to Montréal. She might have had an English name (having come from the English colonies) or a Portuguese name (having been born in Portugal) or even a French or a Flemish name (having been previously owned by a man from Flanders). She might also at some point have had an African name."
4) "The jailer brought Angélique from her cell to the salle d'audience. Raimbault told her to sit on the 'stool of repentance' and remove her shoes and her head scarf. As judge, it was his duty to read formally to her the verdict and the punishment. He concurred with his notaries. In ponderous tones, Raimbault condemned Angélique to death.
'All evidence considered, we have found the said accused sufficiently guilty and convicted of having started the fire in the house of demoiselle Francheville, which caused the conflagration of part of the town. For the punishment of this crime, we have condemned the accused to make honourable amends, nude except for a shirt, with a cord tied around her neck, holding in her hand a burning torch two pounds in weight, before the principal door and entry of the parish church of this town [Notre-Dame], where she will be led by the executioner of high justice, in a rubbish cart, with a small placard in the front and at the back with the words 'arsonist,' and there, with her head bare, and while kneeling, to declare that she wickedly set the fire and caused the said conflagration, of which she repents and asks pardon in the name of the king and of justice. After this, her hand will be cut off, on a post that will be raised in front of the said church. Then she will be led by the said executioner in the rubbish cart to the public square, to be then tied to a post with an iron chain and then burned alive, her body to be reduced to ashes, and those same ashes to be thrown to the winds. Her worldly goods to be seized and confiscated and put in the king's possession. She will be subjected to la question ordinaire et extraordinaire in order to obtain the names of her accomplices.
With regards to the said Thibault [Angélique's lover], we have ordered that, upon consideration of the testimonies offered by the witnesses, the said Thibault will be subjected to questioning, in order that after la question has been applied to the said Negress and her interrogation communicated to the king's attorney with the description of contempt of court, all the proceedings reported so that judgment can be passed because of the said contempt of court as we will see fit.
Passed and delivered in Montréal court by us, [Pierre Raimbault] lieutenant general, assisted by J.B. Adhémar, Auguste Guillet de Chaumont, Gaudron de Chevremont and François Lepailleur, royal notaries and practitioners, 4 June 1734.'"
5) "By emphasizing love as Angélique's primary motive, these writers not only rob her of the agency that she exhibited in her quest for liberty, they also diminish the violence inherent in slavery. For them, Angélique did not flee because she found her enslavement humiliating, awful, and suffocating; she fled because she was 'in love.' If we take this reasoning one step further, it is easy to conclude that slavery could not have been so bad. I believe that the 'in love' thesis advanced by these authors speaks to their unease with the race, gender, and power relations intrinsic to slavery. Whites exercised almost unlimited power over the lives of enslaved Black people. This unequal power relationship between Whites and Blacks was an everyday and institutionalized feature of slavery. And it has shaped modern-day race relations in Canada. Trudel and his cohorts are all modern Québec historians, and they may have been influenced by the fact that today one does not examine (publicly) the race question in Québec unless one is talking about the French and the English. These historians refuse to see that Angélique was an enraged woman who wished to run away from enslavement not because of Thibault, but because of slavery itself."
'Quebec Gazette, February 23, 1769
Mr. Prenties has to sell a negro woman, aged 25 years, with a mulatto male child, 9 months old. She was formerly the property of General Murray; she can be well recommended for a good house servant; handles milk well and makes butter to perfection.'"
2) "Interestingly, [Simcoe's July 1793] act did not prevent the sale of slaves across international borders. Many slaveholders saw this loophole and [...] sold their slaves into New York.
Upper Canadian slaves who were hoping to be freed by Simcoe's bill had to look for their freedom elsewhere. In 1787, the Northwest Territory (Michigan, Indiana, Ohio, Illinois, Wisconsin, and part of Minnesota) issued an ordinance prohibiting slavery. Vermont and other parts of New England had also abolished slavery by this date. And, in 1799, New York made provisions for the gradual abolition of slavery. As a result, many Upper Canadian enslaved Blacks escaped into these free territories. So numerous were some of these former Canadians in American cities that, in Detroit, for example, a group of former Upper Canadian slaves formed a militia in 1806 for the defence of the city against the Canadians. They also fought against Canada in the War of 1812.
If Simcoe's bill had a redeeming feature, it was the article that prohibited the importation of new slaves into the province. This meant, in effect, that slavery would decline, as it could not be expanded through importation. Perhaps more important, it also meant that any foreign slaves would be immediately freed upon reaching the soil of Upper Canada. That was what began the Underground Railroad for enslaved Americans. By the War of 1812, they had heard of this novel situation and many began making the trek northward. The paradox is inescapable: at the same time, many Upper Canadian slaves were making the trek southward to freedom in Michigan and New England."
3) "Obviously the slave woman's name was not Marie-Joseph Angélique when she came to Montréal. She might have had an English name (having come from the English colonies) or a Portuguese name (having been born in Portugal) or even a French or a Flemish name (having been previously owned by a man from Flanders). She might also at some point have had an African name."
4) "The jailer brought Angélique from her cell to the salle d'audience. Raimbault told her to sit on the 'stool of repentance' and remove her shoes and her head scarf. As judge, it was his duty to read formally to her the verdict and the punishment. He concurred with his notaries. In ponderous tones, Raimbault condemned Angélique to death.
'All evidence considered, we have found the said accused sufficiently guilty and convicted of having started the fire in the house of demoiselle Francheville, which caused the conflagration of part of the town. For the punishment of this crime, we have condemned the accused to make honourable amends, nude except for a shirt, with a cord tied around her neck, holding in her hand a burning torch two pounds in weight, before the principal door and entry of the parish church of this town [Notre-Dame], where she will be led by the executioner of high justice, in a rubbish cart, with a small placard in the front and at the back with the words 'arsonist,' and there, with her head bare, and while kneeling, to declare that she wickedly set the fire and caused the said conflagration, of which she repents and asks pardon in the name of the king and of justice. After this, her hand will be cut off, on a post that will be raised in front of the said church. Then she will be led by the said executioner in the rubbish cart to the public square, to be then tied to a post with an iron chain and then burned alive, her body to be reduced to ashes, and those same ashes to be thrown to the winds. Her worldly goods to be seized and confiscated and put in the king's possession. She will be subjected to la question ordinaire et extraordinaire in order to obtain the names of her accomplices.
With regards to the said Thibault [Angélique's lover], we have ordered that, upon consideration of the testimonies offered by the witnesses, the said Thibault will be subjected to questioning, in order that after la question has been applied to the said Negress and her interrogation communicated to the king's attorney with the description of contempt of court, all the proceedings reported so that judgment can be passed because of the said contempt of court as we will see fit.
Passed and delivered in Montréal court by us, [Pierre Raimbault] lieutenant general, assisted by J.B. Adhémar, Auguste Guillet de Chaumont, Gaudron de Chevremont and François Lepailleur, royal notaries and practitioners, 4 June 1734.'"
5) "By emphasizing love as Angélique's primary motive, these writers not only rob her of the agency that she exhibited in her quest for liberty, they also diminish the violence inherent in slavery. For them, Angélique did not flee because she found her enslavement humiliating, awful, and suffocating; she fled because she was 'in love.' If we take this reasoning one step further, it is easy to conclude that slavery could not have been so bad. I believe that the 'in love' thesis advanced by these authors speaks to their unease with the race, gender, and power relations intrinsic to slavery. Whites exercised almost unlimited power over the lives of enslaved Black people. This unequal power relationship between Whites and Blacks was an everyday and institutionalized feature of slavery. And it has shaped modern-day race relations in Canada. Trudel and his cohorts are all modern Québec historians, and they may have been influenced by the fact that today one does not examine (publicly) the race question in Québec unless one is talking about the French and the English. These historians refuse to see that Angélique was an enraged woman who wished to run away from enslavement not because of Thibault, but because of slavery itself."
black_girl_reading's review against another edition
4.0
Broadly about the history of slavery in Canada, which spanned some 206 years, this book personalizes this narrative through the reconstruction of the life and hanging of the slave Angelique, who is believed to have set the fire that burned down Old Montreal. This book was dark, in particular the very detailed description of the torture applied to Angelique to force a confession; the French had an entirely bureaucratized system of torture that they used in criminal investigations - it was horrific. This book is powerful and important. Here’s the thing. I think it’s actually two books. One is a text on the history of slavery in Canada. The other would be a fictionalized account of the hanging of Angelique. Here is my reasoning. Much is known about so many people in the book, the history of slavery, the judicial system, all of it. Almost nothing is known of Angelique. What she looked like, what she thought, who she was as a person. And because of that, the book was wildly unbalanced, with the dry facts dominating the narrative, and the majority of Angelique’s story being primarily speculative and unresolved. I would be here for both books, but found myself truly craving a book that imagines the badassery of a woman that burnt down an entire city in her effort to escape slavery - an extraordinary act of resistance if there ever was one.