Studio Kit

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When I left you on Monday, Angélique and Claude had flown, and behind them, the city of Montréal burned.

In colonial times, fire was the greatest fear; and it was often used as a tool of rebellion by slaves - a way to let their owners know exactly what they felt. In fact, Angélique had used this tool already - the first time she and Claude ran away, she had set a small fire as a distraction.

But this particular "little fire" through great bad luck spread, and so Montreal burned.

The very next day, having been found in Pauper's Park, Angélique was arrested and charged with deliberately burning the city down, although the accusation against her was based on nothing more than supposition and rumour.

At her trial, witness after witness was brought before the judges, none of whom had actually seen her do it, or could prove that she had; the most credible witnesses against her were a woman who was "feeble-minded" who said Angélique was "agitated" before the trial, and another, with an ax to grind against Angélique, who said that Angélique had threatened to "burn the city down".

Months into the trial, a witness was finally brought forward who could swear that Angélique was guilty:

..a five year old white child.

That was good enough for the judges, and though Angélique still protested her innocence, she was found guilty and sentenced: her hands were to be cut off, and then she was to be burned alive in payment for her sins.

At the time, being found guilty of a crime was not enough. A prisoner who was found guilty, was then tortured after the fact in order to determine if a full confession of the crime had occurred. Unsurprisingly under these conditions, it was often discovered that more crimes had been committed.

"Fortunately" for Angélique, at least one of the judges on the panel felt that there was some doubt whether she had done it - based mostly on Madam de Francheville's impassioned belief that Angélique would not and could not have done such a thing. He appealed her sentence, and was successful - instead of having her hands cut off and being burned alive, Angélique would be given the boot, then hung, and then she would be burned.

But, you may be asking, what about Claude?

Claude, that inconstant lover, left her behind that night in Pauper's Park and was never heard from nor seen again.

Despite this betrayal, even under torture, Angélique refused to give him up. Though she finally did "confess" to setting the fire, she remained steadfast and true, saying that it was she and she alone who committed the crime. One year after her death, they closed the case and stopped looking for Claude Thibault.

Montréal was re-built, life went on, and until 1925, Angélique was forgotten.

Since then, scholarly books and papers have been written about her; novels, poems, art installations, films and a documentary have been done with Angélique as their subject; but no one really knows the truth of what happened that night.

Some scholars believe that with her history of setting fires, her proven behaviour as a runaway slave and fire being a tool of rebellious slaves, it could hardly be believed that she didn't set the fire.

Other, more recent scholarship says that Angélique was a scapegoat - a problem slave who needed getting rid of - with an enemy in the house next door who fell asleep over a fire that burned too brightly, and an angry public who needed someone to blame for their losses - it was only too convenient to choose Angélique.

If you've a mind to do it, there's a wonderful site HERE that offers a comprehensive study of the city at the time, offers witness testimony and other historical documents - even a short film that shows the route that Angélique was taken on her way to the gallows.

You can become the detective-scholar yourself and perhaps, you'll come to your own conclusion about who committed this crime.

But I chose Angélique for "Broad Changes" because nearly 300 years after her death, she finally did effect change - her story brought to light the fact of Canadian slavery - an important historical fact - but also one that changes we Canadians culturally.

No longer can we point fingers at our neighbours and say "Not I!"; and through that realization we can then look at the racism and xenophobia that lives in Canadian hearts just as it does in our American friends to the South.

But more importantly, for me personally, Angélique is a heroine because whether she did or didn't burn Montreal: her heart was fired with rage against injustice, ablaze with a passionate belief in her right to have autonomy over her body, inflamed by her certainty that it was her right to choose who she should love, and alight with her belief in her singular, inalienable personhood.

Angélique: incendiary.