In the spring of 1734, Marie-Josèphe Angélique made her preparations to escape from Montreal.
The property of François Poulin de Francheville, Angélique was a black slave living in New France. Working in Francheville’s home, she had fallen in love with a white man. When word came to Angélique that she was going to be sold, she and Claude Thibault chose to flee, but events did not go as planned for the star-crossed lovers.
Fire in Montreal 1734
A blaze took hold in the de Francheville home on the night of April 10, 1734, the tinder-dry wood construction erupting into a hot fire. In a short time, the flames spread up and down la rue as the alarmed residents fled for their very lives. House by house, the fire engulfed the town. Five homes, ten, then twenty... by the time the blaze was over, forty-five homes and the Hôtel Dieu Hospital were charred heaps of ash. The sharp finger of blame pointed directly at Marie-Josèphe Angélique and Claude Thibault.
Rumours and Circumstantial Evidence
Only one of the pair was captured by les gendarmes. Put on trial, unreliable witnesses testified that Marie-Josèphe Angélique set the fire in her master’s home, alleging the slave woman “set the fire ‘out of wickedness’ to cover her plan to escape slavery and travel to New England with her white lover,” said Citizenship and Immigration Canada in “Prominent Black Canadians.“ Of the twenty or so witnesses including a five-year-old girl, no one saw Angélique set the fire. Though there was doubt, the court felt the rumours and circumstantial evidence were sufficient for a decision. Marie-Josèphe Angélique was found guilty. And Thibault? He ran and was never found.
The initial sentence passed down for Angélique’s punishment on June 4th was brutal. The guilty was “to make honourable amends, to have her hand cut off, and to be burnt alive,” said André Vachon in the Dictionary of Canadian Biography in the entry, “Marie-Josèphe Angélique.” On appeal, the punishment was somewhat altered. “She was to be taken in a rubbish cart to the church door, where she was to make a formal confession of guilt, then she was to be hanged, before her body was burned,” stated Vachon.
Angélique Tortured
Before the sentence was applied, Angélique was subjected to torture. Brodequins were used on her legs, a method using “four planks of the hardest wood tied to the legs from the knees to the ankles,” said Denyse Beaugrand-Champagne in “Le Procès de Marie-Josèphe Angélique” on Histoquest. The torturer inserted a wedge between the knees and after each question, hit it with a mallet.”
With her leg bones broken by the procedure, a few hours later Angélique was hanged in front of the burned rubble of the de Francheville home on June 21, 1734. Her lifeless body was thrown on a pyre, the punishment completed. The ashes of Marie-Josèphe Angélique were scattered in the winds.
Montreal Park Planned
Marie-Josèphe Angélique was born in Portugal and was about 25 years old at the time of her death sentence. On her death, she was survived by three children, all under the age of four. The City of Montreal is considering the naming of a park in honour of Marie-Josèphe Angélique across from the rebuilt Hôtel-Dieu Hospital.
Sources:
- “Prominent Black Canadians,” Citizenship and Immigration Canada
- Vachon, André, “Marie-Josèphe Angélique,” Dictionary of Canadian Biography
- Beaugrand-Champagne, Denyse, “Le Procès de Marie-Josèphe Angélique,” Histoquest.
- Waffo. Stephane, “Un parc à la mémoire d’une esclave morte,” Agency QMI
Susanna McLeod - Intriguing Canadians, the art of cartoonists, and fascinating moments in Canada's history have kept Susanna McLeod writing for 16 years.
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