Well hello, and happy Monday!
So, you may be wondering who this lovely (temporarily) bald woman is - her name is Angélique - and she's the whole point of this piece. You see, it's for a call named "Broad Changes". Participating artists are supposed to depict a woman who precipitated change, whether in the world, in thinking, or in you personally.
Named Marie Joseph Angélique by her owners, but known as "Angelica" in her time, she holds the unusual distinction of being a folk hero under a name she was never called, in a country in which she never set foot.
A woman born into slavery in Portugal in 1710, she was sold first to a Flemish man, then to a French businessman who had settled in New France (later the province of Quebec in a newly formed country, "Canada"); and then, upon his death, Angélique was willed to his widow.
Ordinarily a house slave in the household of Madam de Francheville, Angélique was sometimes sent to work on the farm owned by the de Franchville family in Montréal, which is where, historically, we meet her.
She was put on a breeding program by her owner and produced three children who had passed away, and at age 23 so, she was sent to Montréal; and there, she fell in love - with a white indentured servant named Claude Thibault, who worked for the same family at their farm.
Snatching what time together they could between their long work hours and under close watch, their love grew, and Angélique found what small happiness a slave could find. But troubled times were on the horizon - the lovers were about to be thwarted.
Angélique was to be sent back to the de Francheville home, where she was going to be made to breed yet again.
Angélique protested angrily and often against this plan to her owner, and as a result, things went from bad to worse. Feeling that she couldn't control Angélique, Madam de Francheville arranged to sell her to another farmer, and the lovers would never see one another again!
Desperate and in love, Angélique and Claude plotted an escape.
They were successful, but were captured weeks later. Claude was sent to jail, while Angélique was returned to her owner, who would decide her fate.
But Madam de Francheville was too busy with her late husband's business to deal with the "problem" of Angélique; so Angélique was able to visit Claude while he was in prison, and it was there that they once more plotted their escape.
When Claude was released from prison, they did so, this time under cover of fire!
But, things went far more badly than they could have imagined.
Having set a small fire in the attic of her owner's house in order to distract from their escape, Angélique inadvertently set the entire city of Montréal ablaze; and that night, while they fled, the city burned.
She was eventually re-captured, tortured, sent to trial, found guilty and hung.
Now known as "Angelique", she is a folk hero in Haiti, where, because of her "French" background, they, with their history of slavery under the French, claim her as their own. In Haiti, she is lauded as a heroine who burned down the city of Montreal in 1734 as an act of defiance and righteous anger because of the abuse she received at the hands of her owners.
In Canada, she was largely un-recognized and certainly wasn't lauded, she was a slave after all, and she burned down a city - this was certainly not the stuff heroines are made of! Add to this the fact that Canadians were and are very invested in sweeping our history with slavery under the rug unless it's in the light of being a nice country that slaves
escaped to and it is no wonder at all that Angélique`s story was almost never told.
Nevertheless, there have been books, plays and even epic poetry written about her over the years; and approximately 15 years ago, one novel in particular captured the imagination of the public,
The Hanging of Angélique: The Untold Story of Canadian Slavery and the Burning of Old Montreal.
The tale of the slave who rebelled against a master's "right" to dictate her life was suddenly a heroine in the country where she died, and more than two hundred and fifty years later, her life has been celebrated - first, with a park and then, more recently, a statue was erected in her honour in "Old Montreal".
This past January, a new documentary about her entitled
Black Hands - Trial of An Arsonist Slave was released.
But did she do it?
More, on Wednesday.
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