1734 Execution of a Québec slave
Marie-Joseph Angélique was a black slave from the Portuguese island of Madeira. She was sold to a Fleming who brought her to New England before selling her in 1725 to a Québec merchant living in Montreal. She served in the household of François Poulin de Francheville and his wife where she developed a reputation for disobedience and being difficult to control. In February 1734, she attempted to flee to New England with a white servant, Claude Thibaut, but they were captured and returned to her owner. Fearful that she would be sold again, possibly to a far harder life in the West Indies, Angélique vowed to escape again.
On the evening of April 10, inhabitants of Montreal discovered that fire was spreading through the town, a blaze that destroyed the local hospital and 45 houses. Rumours immediately linked Angélique and Thibaut to arson; she was arrested and he fled, never to be found. Though no witnesses linked her to the fire, her reputation and her attempted escape convinced the court that she was guilty. She was sentenced to die in the usual manner of arsonists:
Convicted of Having set fire to the house of dame francheville Causing the Burning of a portion of the city. In Reparation for which we have Condemned her to make honourable amends Disrobed, a Noose around her Neck, and carrying In her hands a flaming torch weighing two pounds before the main door and Entrance of the parish Church of This city where She will be taken And Led, by the executioner of the high Court, in a Tumbrel used for garbage, with an Inscription Front And Back, with the word, Incendiary, And there, bare-headed, And On her Knees, will declare that She maliciously set the fire And Caused the Said Burning, for which She repents And Asks Forgiveness from the Crown And Court, and this done, will have her fist Severed On a stake Erected in front of the Said Church. Following which, she will be led by the said Executioner in the same tumbrel to the Public Place to there Be bound to the Stake with iron shackles And Burned alive, her Body then Reduced To Ashes And Cast to the Wind, her Belongings taken And Remanded to the King, the said accused having previously been subjected to torture in the ordinary And Extraordinary ways in order to have her Reveal her Accomplices.
Though a judicial review changed her sentence from mutilation and burning to death by hanging, she was also required to undergo torture to get her to name her accomplices. The official torturer, also a black slave, broke her leg in a device known as “the boot” but, despite her pain, she maintained she had acted alone. On this day in 1734 she was hanged, with her body burnt and her ashes scattered.
Recent historians have claimed that she was either innocent, or acted out of rebellion against slavery. A street in Montreal in now named after her.