The Hanging of Angélique:The Untold Story of Canadian Slavery and the Burning of Old Montréal

Race in the Atlantic World, 1700–1900

by Afua Cooper

Writer, historian and poet Afua Cooper tells the astonishing story of Marie-Joseph Ang�lique, a slave woman convicted of starting a fire that destroyed a large part of Montr�al in April 1734 and condemned to die a brutal death. In a powerful retelling of Ang�lique’s story—now supported by archival illustrations—Cooper builds on 15 years of research to shed new light on a rebellious Portuguese-born black woman who refused to accept her indentured servitude. At the same time, Cooper completely demolishes the myth of a benign, slave-free Canada, revealing a damning 200- year-old record of legally and culturally endorsed slavery.

Genres: Nonfiction, History, Canada, Biography, Race, Historical, African American

349 pages, Hardcover

First published January 24, 2006

About the author

Afua Cooper is a Jamaican-born Canadian historian, author and dub poet.

Born in Westmoreland, Jamaica, Cooper grew up in Kingston, Jamaica, and migrated to Toronto in 1980. She holds a Ph.D. in African-Canadian history with specialties in slavery and abolition. Her dissertation, "Doing Battle in Freedom’s Cause", is a biographical study of Henry Bibb, a 19th-century African-American abolitionist who lived and worked in Ontario. She also has expertise in women's history and New France studies.

She has published four books of poetry, including Memories Have Tongue (1994), one of the finalists in the 1992 Casa de las Americas literary award. She is the co-author of We're Rooted Here and They Can't Pull Us Up: Essays in African Canadian Women's History (1994), which won the Joseph Brant Award for history. She has also released two albums of her poetry.

Her book The Hanging of Angelique (2006) tells the story of an enslaved African Marie-Joseph Angelique who was executed in Montreal at a time when Quebec was under French colonial rule. It was shortlisted for the 2006 Governor General's Literary Award for non-fiction.

Afua Cooper is the James Robinson Johnston Chair in Black Canadian Studies, at Dalhousie University. Her research interests are African Canadian studies, with specific regard to the period of enslavement and emancipation in 18th and 19th century Canada and the Black Atlantic; African-Nova Scotian history; political consciousness; community building and culture; slavery’s aftermath; Black youth studies.

Dr. Cooper founded the Black Canadian Studies Association (BCSA), which she currently chairs.

Reviews

[Christine · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the book that got away. This means I owe Dr. Cooper an apology. Around the time this book came out, I was in Montreal. There was an exhibit about the fire and part of the exhibit was a section about whether Angelique was guilty or innocent of the crime of arson. It was a very interesting exhibit. This book was being sold in several stores, and I was very, very tempted to buy it. I didn’t, mostly because of budgeting. But I should have broken my budget because I always regretted it.
Ah, the wonders of the internet.
Marie-Joseph Angelique was a slave. Yes, a slave; Canada had slavery. Perhaps the greatest sin is that this is not common knowledge and is swept under the carpet. In the States, we acknowledge slavery, though there are still racist and stupid people who try to make slavery out not to be that bad. (Honestly, if you haven’t seen Ask a Slave on YouTube, GO WATCH IT NOW!). But I never associated Canada with slavery (outside of the Underground Railroad) until I saw the exhibit about the Montreal fire.
Cooper does double duty in this book. Undoubtedly this is because the history of a slave who was executed for a crime is near impossible to do. Angelique didn’t leave much in the way of source material. The first duty is the story of Angelique, or as much as the story that Cooper can reconstruct from court records, sales records and the like. The second is a brief, but considering the space somewhat in-depth, look at the history of slavery, while pointing out that such history (and the history of African settlers in particular) has been destroyed.
So in large part, this book points out a largely forgotten and ignored aspect of North American history, not just Canadian.
The section about Canadian slavery is interesting, even for those of us who do not live in Canada. It also raises new understanding about the colonial period of both countries. The sections about Angelique are the most powerful. It should be noted that the book opens with a description of Angelique’s torture. While Angelique’s voice is only carried though history by the court records, Cooper does her best to give this faceless woman a voice. This is particularly true in regards to the motivation Angelique had for the fire she may have started.
Cooper looks not only at what might have been Angelique’s pre-Montreal history, but also at the relationships and the might have been in Angelique’s Montreal life. In some respects, she is hampered by a lack of a firsthand material. Angelique, for instance, says her mistress is kind and nice (there is a strange story about tickling), and also talks of abuse. Angelique is not passive, and Cooper, intentionally it seems, turns her into a tragic heroine. It is impossible not to root for Angelique even though you know the outcome.
In the States, when we take about resistance to slavery, we largely mention the Underground Railroad, Harriet Tubman, Sojourner Truth, and John Brown and other abolitionists. We might get told about various slave rebellions. Cooper’s look at Angelique gives far more context about such rebellions, not only in the reasons for (cruelty is the only one that is mentioned in schools), but also about how rebellions were not just physical.
Honestly, if you are interested in history of North America. You really should read this book.

[Nahliah · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good read. A good introduction to slavery in Canada. I didn't know about how and when slavery was conducted in Canada and under what circumstances for the slaves involved and so the text was informative. The author tries to stretch her lack of material and authority on the life of this one slave and tries to present to the audience an authoritative text on slavery in Canada, which it is not. Unlike Edward S. Morgan in "American Slavery American Freedom" she's not drawing from a wealth of resources about the protagonist and some of her material, instead of providing insightful background, seems superfluous and unnecessary to understanding the protagonist and her plight. The book would have been better as historical fiction/ drama. I do like her attempt to give this black woman her voice and provide her with the agency that she was robbed of during her lifetime. But we can't escape the fact that the small amount of material available on her was written (and therefore interpreted) by elite, white men and an attempt to give the protagonist a voice can only be done with this white elite, possibly slave holding voice. Needless to say when the protagonist is "asserting her voice" it is actually the author's voice that the reader hears. The author does try to explain the multifacetious nature of slavery in Canada but doesn't succeed in attaching all of it's characteristics onto this one character. On the one hand she demonstrates that all slaves didn't live the same lives but then, without hard evidence, suggests that Angelique could have possibly experienced every degradation attached to slavery. An additional stretch was the claim that this slave's court documents were in effect the first slave narrative ever. The author's argument was essentially that since not all slave narratives were a. accurate and b. written by the former slaves their selves but embellished accounts of slavery that supported abolitionist ends that we can take these court documents (where the protagonist has no say in the writing and interpretation of her story) and see them as a narrative. I don't think that Angelique would agree. It's inconsistent to say that due to the nature of the material and the position and status of it's authors the protagonist was robbed of her voice and her self and then say that these same texts can be used as her story that she would have agreed to and possibly would have published had she had the means to do so. Again, it was a good introduction to the topic of slavery in Canada but in order to go deeper further research is necessary.

[Books written by POC]

I'm part way through "The Hanging of Angelique", which is about the Atlantic Slave Trade in Canada. I know that Canadian history rarely, if *ever*, talks about our history of slavery, so this whole book has been both appalling and eye-opening for me.[return][return]Basically, Angelique was accused of burning down Montreal in the 1700s (the book's at home right now, so I'm fuzzy on the details). She had been a slave coming out of Portugal (I am learning so much about the Atlantic Slave Trade this school-year, between my class on Forced & Free Immigration to Latin America and this book), been taken to New York, and then brought up to Canada. The author, who dedicates the book to our then-new Govenor General, believes that Angelique's testimony about herself and her life may be the first Slave Narrative in North America, because she goes into so much detail about her experiences as a Slave, and about her *rage*.[return][return]It's a hard read for me, because I *like* the idea that Canada is a Post-Racist Utopia. I want to believe our only connection to the Slave Trade in North America is the end of the Underground Railway. But it's not. And just like we shouldn't ignore Africville here in Halifax, or Priceville in Ontario, we shouldn't ignore this.[return][return]Sadly, none of my reading right now *at all* is fluffy, or even fiction, so I have no recommendations, but if you want to get an idea of what's going on in Canadian historic circles right now, this may be a good book.

[kass · Rating 3 out of 5]

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-ignored history of Canadian slavery.

[Maud Bouter · Rating 3 out of 5]

this was a stressful read - kreeg maandag te horen dat ik het voor aanstaande maandag uit moet hebben én een review moet schrijven maar ik zit nu in de auto naar toronto in t weekend dus tijd hebben we niet!!! maar goed net uitgelezen en wanneer die review geschreven moet worden daar moet ik nog even over nadenken

[Luke · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5/5

It is possible to complete a graduate degree in Canadian studies and not know that slavery existed in Canada.

This is a book that suffers from the fact that there aren't ten thousand others like it and/or concerned with the same or a similar topic. Its reception on this site suffers further from the fact that most of those who are most likely to actually getting around to reading something like this do on a seasonal, current events based, liberal schedule, aka whenever Amazon decides to force through another do-gooder list on anti-racism in order to distract from the fact that its over a year long problem with porn bots on a site intended for users age 13 and up still isn't satisfactorily or safely resolved. There's also the matter of this work being more overt about using its pre-colon hook in order to minutely delve into the post-colon topic as much is allowed by 300 pages of material and 50 pages of endnotes/bibliography than is the average work of nonfiction, so readers looking for the usual sad story with a few dates and facts attacked are going to wind up with something a lot more intensive, and thus a lot more damning, than they signed up for. And, if that weren't enough, there's also the fact that, for all the weighty academic material being delivered, the tone isn't 100% that of the sort of ironclad objectivity that "Western" education loves to indoctrinate their students with, so the ones who are here for intensive academic matters might dismiss the material outright for daring to use first person perspective. As such, I'm not surprised that this work's average rating is just shy of dropping below the 3.7 range that often makes or breaks a book's reputation on this site. What all that doesn't change, however, is how vital it is that histories like these are unburied, and if there's anything to be learned from this, alongside contemporary news regarding mass graves at residential schools, it's that Canada in particular has a lot 0f unburying to do.

I'll admit to not knowing that much about my homeland's northern neighbors, but what I do know is how insidiously the kindly/peaceful/not nearly as bad as the US stereotypes are cultivated with the aid of many a white US citizen, and slavery with the 'escape up north/Underground Railroad' scenario is only one of the more pervasive of the pack. It's the kind of whitewashed scenario in academia that leads to a more than difficult trickling into the public consciousness, for what information there is is often too dense/theoretical/truth packed for the average reader to willingly take on, and what money is there to be made in creating the kind of suitably introductory material to a subject such as slavery in Canada when the country's own academia is so out of touch with the reality of its history? So, if you're going to approach this work as I did and dive right in with barely a care for supplemental context, be aware that the hanging of Angelique is a mere leaping off point for as much of the story of Canadian slavery as Cooper could manage to fit in, complete with discussions of First Nations, the fur trade, Jewish/New Christian merchant networks, the passing of Portugal/Dutch into Spanish/French/English on an imperial scale, Louis XIV, the early history of Montreal's architecture, Fado singers, colonial newspapers, slave narratives, nepotism, dehumanization, and survival. Those who read this without being invested in uncovering the true face of history and all its sordidness are going to be bored out of their minds, while others are going to sniff at Cooper's sometimes pedestrian prose and more creative extrapolations when it comes to matters such as the reality of Angélique's mental state throughout the events or whether or not her trial records can be considered alongside the testaments of Harriet E. Jacobs and Frederick Douglass. The problem when such occurs in regards to a topic such as this is that the average (white) reader will use it as an excuse to pass by the subject forevermore, and the stance Cooper takes at certain points near the end of the work certainly implies that she's aware that her work is going to become a kind of litmus test of acceptability when it comes to the general publication market for such material. As such, it becomes a damned if you do, damned if you don't situation, and all in all, Cooper did a solid job with the material she had and the room she was allowed to move within page/word count wise. So, read this if you truly have an interest, but don't assume your reactions come out of any sort of vacuum of "reader's right to read", or whatever casual form the hegemonic literary discourse takes for purposes of inculcating the general masses these days. Reading this isn't going to make you a better person, and doing so for the sake of such is worse than useless.

Once again, I'm reading a work of nonfiction that mentions a multitude of topics of such impactful magnitude that I could easily benefit from reading a book or two on each as confined within their own respective sphere of influence and importance. It's not a habit that conforms to anything written in Forbes about how to convert every spare minute of your "free" time to promoting the means and mechanisms of capitalism, but it does give me that tiny bit more awareness and knowledge that I aim for in all my reading, and with the state of the world as it continues to be, sometimes that's all you can ask for. Unfortunately, this seems to be the only moderately well publicized and substantial work of academic nonfiction that Cooper has come out with since this work's publication, and from the looks of the source materials she used to write this, I'd have to trudge through a whole lot of whiteness in order to get to that much more need to know Blackness. So, I don't have much of an idea as to what works I would read next in order to follow up on one topic or another that was enticingly hinted at in these pages, but I do know that more reading needs to be done. It's a frame of mind that, when it comes to the burning of Old Montreal, it's not that it happened in the first place that makes me want to read more, but that I need to read more in order to come to the kind of awareness where I am absolutely astounded by the fact that it didn't happen more often.

Raimbault had built a case based on innuendo, insinuation, hearsay, and Angélique's bad reputation. Yet he was following established and recognized legal practices.

[Nick Carraway LLC · Rating 4 out of 5]

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."

[Jennifer Hoffert · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book read more like a textbook than anything else, or like a drawn-out historical essay. It was dry and the author’s academic style of writing put me to sleep at times. It picked up partway through as the “action” started to happen. The book was well-annotated and objectively chronicled the history of the great Montreal fire and the woman accused of setting it. It drew out a side of Canadian history around slavery in this country that I was fully unaware of. I learned more about the history of slavery than I ever have, and I’m surprised that this is not something that’s acknowledged more in Canada. Dr Cooper has done great work with her research in bringing this to the forefront, but I’m in agreement that there is more work to be done around acknowledgment and reconciliation. Overall, could have been shorter, condensed somewhat and had the same impact.

[Sukhpreet · Rating 4 out of 5]

An important and difficult read that revealed my ignorance about the depth of enslavement in Canada. For example, I didn't know that some American states abolished slavery before Canada did, leading some people enslaved here to escape to those states. Of course, there is so much more I didn't know. And thankfully, some that I did. This book, somewhat obviously, should be required reading in Canadian high school history classes (if not earlier, as excerpts).

[kim v · Rating 5 out of 5]

Powerful. Enlightening. Slavery in Canada happened. A must read for all Canadians. Should be in the high school curriculum.

[Kelly]

Before I read this book I didn't know that Canadians were willing participants in the slave trade. They enslaved African Americans and Native Canadians and treated them like possessions -- just like they did in the United States. I also didn't know that John Graves Simcoe was instrumental in the abolition of slavery in Upper Canada. Something I hadn't ever considered before was also brought to my attention -- the Portuguese initiated the slave trade!



Afua Cooper belives that the collection of court records from Angelique's trial -- for setting fire to Old Montreal in 1734 -- contain the oldest known narative of the life of an enslaved Black person in North America. The records tell not only of the events surrounding Angelique's crimes, but they also contain Angelique's personal narrative of her own origins in Portugal, her travel across the Atlantic to New England, and how she came to reside with her owner in Montreal.



This is certainly a lesson that we wouldn't have been taught in Canadian History class because most people don't know that slavery even existed in Canada. Hats off to Afua Cooper for being Angelique's voice and telling the story of slavery in Canada.

[Cynda · Rating 4 out of 5]

Through this book Afua Cooper fights against marginalization. My being educated in the US, maybe particularly in Texas, I know only a few trite half-thoughts about French colonization of the New World. The Big One:

Trite: The French were unsuccessful colonizers.
Better: French colonizers were spread out in many places in the New World.
Better: Here in Texas, colonizers live through their descendant's genetic makeup. I have a French ancestor generations back. I had a great grandmother who was raised by her French stepmother. Better: New Orleans and south has French-surnamed people who still keep some of pronunciation of places and people. The French ancestors live through their descendants' keeping some of the foods altered to meet New World foodstuffs available.

Back to this book. Because Cooper ismwriting of a woman who either did not write or did not write thoughts, Cooper had to re-create scenarios as best she could. Yet Cooper often refrains from the troubling subjunctive mood and avoids the indecisive indicative conditional tense as much as possible.

Did Cooper grow up Catholic/is Catholic/studied Catholicism? Well, in any case, she got the Catholic value system and hierarchy right. And she got the judicial machinations and the Catholic confession, murder style, right in a land where Catholicism was next to King in the social hierarchy.

What would I have liked to have seen? What not be available in Canada: Slavery conditions in the city of Montreal. Because Canada does not remember slavery in its approved school textbooks, much information about Canadian Slavery has been suppressed.

Overall, Cooper did as well as she possibly could. And she really did her best. She did research for 15 years she did research.

Well done.

[Alexis · Rating 3 out of 5]

The material in this was really strong. Cooper subverts the way that we, as Canadians, generally see ourselves when the topic of slavery comes up, because we don't talk about it.

When we're learning about the fur trade and New France in middle-grade social studies, no one mentions that there were slaves, both Indigenous and Black, that slavery was legal for two centuries, that officials in charge of New France pushed for slavery.

Cooper hangs this discussion on the narrative of Marie-Joseph Angelique, an enslaved Black woman who was convicted of setting a fire that eventually claimed a good chunk of Montreal in the 1700s and was executed for it.

The book did feel like it could've used another editorial sweep though. Details were often repeated, almost like the author expected that each chapter would be read separately, and so you would run into things that had sometimes been mentioned only a few pages before.

[Dafina · Rating 4 out of 5]

I went into this expecting a historical fiction and got something that reads more like a textbook. I’m not typically a non fiction reader but I did really enjoy it. I’ve always had an issue with the erasure black history in Canada faces but I didn’t really know where to start learning. Through Angelique’s story and a-lot of historical context, this book definitely helped and I learned more about The Slave Trade and specifically Slavery in Canada than I ever did in school. There was some repetition and some parts went on a little long but overall I’d recommend this to anyone interested in Black Canadian history.

[Amy · Rating 5 out of 5]

An extremely engaging and meticulously detailed and well-researched telling of Canadian history and slavery through the story of one enslaved woman in Montreal and her trial and execution after burning large parts of the city in 1734. I learned so much about early Canadian history and the role of slavery in the economy at that time. And I loved the author's perspective on Angelique and the way she explored this young woman's life and possible feelings and motivations. I certainly agree with her perspective on Angelique's motive for the fire. This books helps shatter the completely false narrative of Canada having no history of slavery, one which intentionally erases the clear and obvious centuries of slavery to create Canada as a civil and just place.

[Jerisha Grant-Hall · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a chronicle of not just the presence of enslaved black bodies in Canada, but also the narrative voice of black women in Canada. I love how Ms. Cooper takes Angélique’s invisible and marginalized story and places it at the center of Canadian national consciousness. In this era of truth and reconciliation, Blacks are right behind Aboriginal peoples to have our truths reconciled. In the height of the narrative control of the eighteenth century, The Hanging of Angélique reemerges, in resistance, and demands to be seen and heard.

[Danielle · Rating 4 out of 5]

Canada likes to promote the Underground Railroad while completely ignoring its own history of slavery - this book documents otherwise.

[Shannon · Rating 3 out of 5]

Super informative work on slavery of Black and Indigenous peoples in Canada. For those looking to self educate on the Indigenous peoples in Canada under the current discoveries, this is a good book to read in tandem with TRC / Indian Act based readings. Black slavery is the focal point of the novel, presenting a narrative of Canada’s treatment of enslaved people, in a period before to the Indian Act and residential schools. These practiced were obviously tied to one so this is an important read.

Stylistically a little dry / sometimes repetitive, so it was a bit hard to keep with it at some points. Definitely still worth it for a better understanding of early Canadian history.

[Ashley · Rating 3 out of 5]

I thought this was going to be a book on Angelique's story and the first couple of chapters were but then a lot of the book provided us with historical context which was then tied to Angelique. To be honest, I was solely interested in learning about Angelique and I feel like I would've been better off reading an article about her life.

[Sean Liburd · Rating 4 out of 5]

“Slavery is Canada’s best-kept secret, locked within the national closet. And because it is a secret it is written out of official history. But slavery was an institutionalized practice for over two hundred years. In this ground breaking work “The Hanging of Angélique,” Dr. Afua Cooper reveals what Canadian history Textbooks omits the truth. Canada was not only a safe haven for slaves, it was also an active participant in the slave trade. Some historians will argue that it was only a mild form of slavery, but Marie-Joseph Angélique who was humiliated, brutally tortured, strangled and hanged surely would disagree.

Born a slave in Portugal and eventually sold to a wealthy Montreal fur trader, Marie-Joseph Angelique fiery spirit and refusal to be domesticated led to her facing trial for the burning of Old Montreal in 1734.
Although no one was killed the fire wreaked havoc on the city destroying forty-six building, including Hộtel-Dieu and almost the whole merchant sector that represented the core of the city. At the end of the trial Marie-Joseph Angelique was found guilty despite the fact that no one saw her set the fire. She was still just a slave and guilty or not she would have to endure the faith reserved for most rebellious slaves dishonestly then death.

Afua Cooper a dub poet, author of several poetry and history books must be commended for paying the ultimate tribute to Marie-Joseph Angelique by committing over 15 years to researching and bringing her story to life. She has reached into the hidden archive and brought to light an important update for Canadian history. This fantastic work is now a finalist for the Governor General Literary Award and must be recognized as a very important document in African history in early Canada.

[Kathryn · Rating 2 out of 5]

I wanted to love this so much. The true story is remarkable and should be retold and remembered. However I felt that this book could have been half the length. The author is a very talented writer and historian. My low rating is that there is very little historical fact to write about Angelique's story and as a result the book is very repetitive and goes into great historical detail, a lot of which was honestly for my eyes was very dry and full of dates. I think this book would have better served Angelique's legacy if it were reconstructed into a historical fiction. The parts of this book in which the author makes assumptions of what could have happened to Angelique were the most entertaining and memorable. I am happy for having read the book and reviewed the transatlantic slave trade and in fact learned some historical facts that I hadn't come across in other places. The epilogue was most valuable as the author offered many names of "slave narratives: the personal account[s] of the life and adventures of an ex-slave, often written while the author is living in freedom, as either a manumitted person or fugitive." So a very good resource for further reading and education.

[Alexandra Chubachi · Rating 3 out of 5]

“Angelique’s interrogations and confession form a startling narration of “unsilencing the past” one that “re-tongues” the mouths of Black women and Black people and allows them to shout their narratives of resistance to the high heavens”

This book is a big piece of historical research so it isn’t an easy read, but a fascinating story nonetheless. Important to acknowledge that despite all of Canada’s protests that, “we are not as bad as the states” we still partook in slavery and much of early Canadian society was built with the aid of slaves.

[Hazel · Rating 1 out of 5]

An important story that needs to be told - I just hated how it was told. I thought it was an irritating combination of repetitive court detail, a who's who of colonial Montreal and Quebec, and personal conjecture of people's feelings and motivations.

I agree that we need to shed light on the history of what is now Canada in terms of slavery and give voice to those who were enslaved and I am glad I now know more about it. However, the style in which the facts and story were told would not lead me to recommend this book.

[TrishTalksBooks · Rating 4 out of 5]

I recently learned of a Canadian historical figure: Marie-Joseph Angelique, a Black enslaved woman who lived in Montreal for the last 10 years of her life. She was executed after being convicted of arson in Montreal in 1734. I decided to learn more by reading The Hanging of Angelique, by Dr. Afua Cooper. Dr. Cooper is a Professor of Sociology and Social Anthropology at Dalhousie University, the former Poet Laureate of Halifax, and the author of numerous volumes of poetry. I checked the book out from the library, and I’m really glad that I did.

The Hanging of Angelique, nominated for the Governor General’s Literary Award for Non-Fiction in 2006, is the result of Dr. Afua Cooper’s extensive research on the life of Angelique. The written records are scant. She was born in Portugal as a slave, was sold to a Flemish man who brought her to the New World, and then later sold to a mercantile family in Montreal in 1725. She was accused of setting the fire of Montreal in 1734, which destroyed a huge amount of the city. Much of the written record comes from the trial transcripts. Angelique maintained her innocence, but given a mountain of circumstantial witness evidence that pointed to her culpability, she was found guilty and executed after she was tortured, by hanging.

The book is a remarkable feat, and I decided to spend two days just immersing myself in it. Cooper uses the story of Angelique as a scaffolding to give us chapters on the history of slavery in Europe, starting with Portugal, how this practice migrated to the New World, in including New France. We then have chapters on life in New France, Montreal and the social conventions that facilitated slavery. There were fewer enslaved persons in Canada than the south, and they often did domestic work, but Cooper makes the point that slavery in Canada was not “easier” or “gentler”; rather, evidence of the rebellion and escape attempts of enslaved persons shows us how truly intolerable the practice was in New France. Cooper points out to us, “Canada might not have been a slave society-that is, a society whose economy was based on slavery-but it was a society with slaves.”

This is evident in the story of Angelique as we know it. She rebelled, talked back to, and threatened her owner. She had probably set a house fire before, and tried to escape, though was hunted down and returned to Montreal. Subsequently, her owner informed her she had been sold, and come spring would be transported to the West Indies, which must have been a hugely frightening prospect. I cannot imagine such a sense of hopelessness.

I liked the structure of the book, with each section detailing a different historical aspect of the slave trade in order to build Angelique’s world. It helped me to understand the context of her life and purported actions. Be warned, the historical details are dense and long at times, but I think they are worth reviewing as an excellent history lesson. I loved the sections where Cooper brought Angelique to life. She had to speculate a great deal, and this is evident as she writes. These portions almost seem novelized, and Cooper gave opinions of Angelique’s possible thoughts and motivations. Cooper held Angelique with great care and compassion as she wrote, which I appreciated. It was poignant when she described the lack of knowledge we have of her: “We have no physical description of Angelique…We know that she as an, ‘esclave de la nation negresse.’ A Black slave woman.” Cooper goes on to ask questions about her, how she lived, what indignities she may have endured. Historians call her Marie-Joseph Angelique, but that was a name imposed on her when she was baptized by her new Montreal owners. No one knows her real name.

For me, this book was an important history lesson, and will add to the reading that I am doing to educate myself about our true history in all of its complexity. It sparked some great discussion in my household, which is part of the process of re-education and learning.

[Rhi Carter · Rating 3 out of 5]

Slavery occurred in Canada and don't let anyone tell you any different.

The Hanging of Angelique tells the story of slavery in Canada, most specifically but not exclusively that of French Canada. Its central narrative is that of the slave woman Angelique who was accused of, and executed for, starting a fire in 1730s Montreal that burned down a large portion of the old city. With a focus on her journey from Portugal, to Flanders, to New England, and lastly to Quebec, the book gives a broad history of the origins of the slave trade, its history, and the demographics who drove it (with an interesting and unusual focus on the Jewish demographic elements of slave traders). The Hanging paints a vivid picture of early Canada, informing the reader on the ways enslaved black and indigenous people were used as a vital source of labour for settlers and traders.

As one would expect, a large portion of the book painstakingly follows the life of Angelique through sale and transportation and abuse and attempts at freedom. The time leading up to the fire, the fire itself, the trial, the appeal, the torture, and the execution are also laid out is as much detail as is possible. Much is made of Angelique's testimonies as the first true record of a slave in North America. Cooper also makes sure to make her own interpretations of the events and legacy clear, which is welcome as history is far too rarely examined by people of colour in such a way.

Cooper is drawing on a relatively shallow pool of sources for this book, which results in a lot of repetition and padding. The reader will find themselves reading a fact repeated multiple times and then read a source in full that states several of the repeated facts. In addition, we spend a lot of time learning facts about minor government officials or Quebec geography that is interesting in it's own right but doesn't serve the thesis of the book.

The Hanging of Angelique tells an often untold side of Canadian history, takes a fresh angle on the history of the transatlantic slave trade, and gives a voice to an unheard historical actor. For someone who reads a lot of history this book may be a little dull and the reader may be better served by reading a summary or skimming the book for the direct source quotations. For a reader just learning about these topics, especially younger students, this book would be a perfect introduction to the Canadian experience with the slave trade and the lives of those who experienced it.

[Ericka Wicks · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5/5. Afua Cooper does the story of Marie-Joseph Angélique (real name unknown) justice. The research and work she put in to tell the story of one of many enslaved women in Canada - one who allegedly started a fire in Montréal that destroyed 46 buildings to cover her attempted escape - is apparent. This is one of those books that should be taught in every school.

Some things I had no idea about:
-Portugal (where Angélique was born in 1705) was the first European country to engage in the slave trade in Africa. In 1444 Prince Henrique of Portugal and his crew of pirates terrorized a local habitation near the mouth of the Senegal River and kidnapped 235 Africans and sold them on the slave market in Portugal. "The capture and sale of African bodies on the Atlantic coastline had commenced."
-Between 1444 and the 1860s, in addition to the 15 million Africans (conservative estimate) forcibly removed from the continent, 30-40 million dies in slave wars, slave caravans, imprisoned in coastal factories, and aboard deplorable slave ships.
-Shipyards in Canada built and supplied ships for the British slave trade.
-The recorded enslavement in Canada began in 1628 with a 9 year old boy from Madagascar (real name unknown, baptized Olivier Le Jeune).
-The Abenaki and sometimes the Iroquois captured Black slave from the English in the south and sold them to New France.
-During the French period (1534-1763) enslaved Indigenous people (colloquially termed "Panis") were more numerous than enslaved Black people. This would reverse when Britain conquered Canada, also slavery would intensify.
-The average age of death of enslaved Indigenous people was 17.7, and enslaved Black people was 25.2.
-Chloe Cooley, and enslaved women who was abused, tied up and thrown in a boat, brought about antislavery legislation in Upper Canada after Lt Governor Simcoe prosecuted her owner then brought forward a bill (one that was originally meant to abolish slavery but was fought hard against) that banned to introduction of new slaves, allowed enslaved people freedom at 25, and ensured children born to enslaved people were free.
-The bill encouraged the creation of the Underground Railroad for enslaved Americans. Interestingly, in the late 18th century, when some northern US colonies abolished slavery or made efforts to do so gradually, many Upper Canadian enslaved Blacks used the Underground Railroad in reverse to escape into these free territories.

[Bill S. · Rating 3 out of 5]

Author believes that Angelique did set the fire to her master's home that destroyed a good portion of Montreal.

Uncovers the hidden history of Canada - EXISTED UNTIL 1834.
Slavery introduced early because of the labor shortage. During French period, there were more Panis (indigeneous) slaves than African. African slaves were obtained through trade with Dutch and English. About 1,500 at time of French and Indian War. Allowed to marry and baptism required.

War and Treaty confirmed right to own slaves and marked a turning point as increasingly turned to African. Lots of colonists moved from North American colonies to Canada looking for land and took slaves with them. British legal system stated they were chattel whereas old French system stated they were humans. But author does not think that really changed much in terms of treatment.

American Revolution another turning point. Loyalists fled in large numbers. Both free and enslaved Blacks came. 5000 of 35000 fleeing to Nova Scotia were Black. Almost all Blacks coming to Quebec were enslaved. Quebec divided into Upper (future Ontario) and Lower Canada (Quebec) so English speaking colonists did not have to live under French law and customs in 1791. Many leading families were slave holders and Joseph Brandt owned slaves.

Col. John Graves Simcoe became Lt. Governor of Upper Canada in 1792. The story of a slave woman beaten, tied up and boated to NY to be sold horrified him. His attempt to get a bill through to end slavery was defeated as locals felt the labor shortage needed to be addressed through slavery. He introduced compromise bill in 1793:
Current slaves would remain so.
No new slaves could be introduced and ALL SLAVES ENTERING WERE FREE UPON ARRIVAL - THIS WAS BASIS OF UNDERGROUND RR. which started around War of 1812.
Children of slaves free at 25. Grandchildren free at birth. (Did not prohibit sale of present slaves to other countries).
Oddly enough there was an underground RR going the other way! As northern states ended slavery and Northwest territory were free, Canadian slaves would flee there.

Other future Canadian Provinces tried but failed to copy this law in Upper Canada. In Quebec slaves began winning cases claiming they were illegally held. Some instances of his in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick. Did not happen in Prince Edward Is.

So, slavery declined from 1790's on. 1834 - British Parliament abolished slavery in all of its territories.

[Ron Peters · Rating 4 out of 5]

“Canada might not have been a slave society – that is, a society whose economy was based on slavery – but it was a society with slaves… Contrary to popular belief, slavery was common in Canada.” (p. 68)

All Canadians should read this book. Canadians are adept at marketing themselves to the world as a nation of “nice” people. This is often true – we are reasonably civil, and our social mores often lean to the progressive end of the political spectrum. But we also conveniently sweep darker aspects of our history under the rug, especially matters related to our racist past.

History books emphasize that Canadians were involved in ‘freeing’ American slaves by bringing them north on the underground railway. We do not talk about the fact that the slaves that escaped to Canada were still classified as slaves and treated as such, legally and socially. Some Canadians sold their slaves back to new owners in the United States, and some slaves in Canada escaped from their masters, preferring to return to the United States.

Legal slavery existed in Canada for two hundred years until England forced us to abandon the practice. Slaves, both Blacks and Indigenous people, were owned as property in English and French Canada. (N.B., Indigenous people also captured Black American slaves in the United States and sold them in Canada, and some Indigenous people owned slaves themselves. Someone still needs to write a good book about the ‘panis,’ the Indigenous slaves of Canada.)

This book focuses on the dramatic story of Marie-Joseph Angélique, a young Black woman and slave who came to Canada via Portugal and New England. Angélique refused to accept bondage. In April 1734, she is believed (in the process of escaping from her owner Thérèse de Couagne de Francheville) to have set fire to a good portion of what is today called Old Montréal. She was tried and convicted, though she only ‘confessed’ under torture. She was then executed by hanging. Her body was burned, and her ashes scattered to the winds.

The story of Angélique is gripping, but Cooper also does an excellent job of correcting Canada’s history concerning slavery and demonstrating how the life of a single individual can illuminate prominent social trends, such as the Atlantic slave industry and the role of Blacks in the story of our nation.

[Jessie · Rating 4 out of 5]

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.

[Sara · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a book that tells the story of Marie-Joseph Angélique, a slave woman who was executed in 1734 for starting a fire that ended up burning Old Montréal. Afua Cooper uses all the texts and documents from Angélique's trial and arrest (and torture). Through those texts, Cooper is able to explore and try to infer who exactly Angélique was as a person. Cooper also weaves Angélique's story into the larger background and context of slavery in Canada. It allows the reader to see such a large scale, global and counry-wide, exploration of slavery by showing how Angélique might have ended up in Canada at the end of her life.

This is one of the best historical books I've ever read--obviously the subject matter is horrifying, but the way Cooper writes was fantastic. She's able to use and share all historical details and contexts without weighing down the reader or being overwhelmed by all the historical facts and dates. Not only that, but she also makes sure to keep Angélique at the center of the story, reminding the reader that we just don't fully know her history in detail. We can only really infer based on the larger historical contexts. It was just woven together seamlessly in a way that just added so much to the story.

I will definitely be reading this again in the future to have more time with it to really take it all in and absorb the largest context.