I turn the corner on Rue Saint-Fran莽ois Xavier after the Notre-Dame Basilica on Place d鈥橝rmes. It鈥檚 a cold Friday night in Old Montreal. I keep walking towards the river. To my left, on a blind wall facing an empty parking lot, one of the twenty-seven 鈥渢ableaux鈥� from Cit茅 M茅moire is playing, the world鈥檚 largest video projection installation. A woman is running in a street, away from flames surrounding buildings in the background. She falls onto the pavement as she runs away, and a small girl points an accusatory index finger at her. The hands and people multiply as the flames disappear. We hear her pleading innocence, then we see her in a prison cell next to a noose, declaring her imminent hanging. A moment later, the video shows a close-up of the woman鈥檚 face, now engulfed in the flames she was running away from. The figure in the video represents Marie-Joseph Ang茅濒颈辩耻别, a Portuguese-born Black enslaved woman who was accused of arson for setting a fire to escape bondage on April 10, 1734. The fire spread to forty-six buildings in Old Montreal, destroying a part of the H么tel Dieu neighborhood. After her arrest, Ang茅濒颈辩耻别 stood a trial that lasted for two months, throughout which she maintained her innocence. She was found guilty, to be tortured, and burned alive. When her sentence was appealed in the Conseil Sup茅rieur, it was modified to torture and hanging. Before her hanging on June 21, 1734, the judge and an executioner, who was brought for her case to New France from Martinique, tortured her to get a forced confession.[1]
Today Ang茅濒颈辩耻别 is a symbol of Black resistance and liberation, but her legacy is quite invisible in Montreal. In a city obsessed with its own history and 鈥渉eroes,鈥� no plaques or statues commemorate her. Few official accounts of the city include her story. In this article I look at Marie-Joseph Ang茅濒颈辩耻别鈥檚 present placing: where and how is she located in the city鈥檚 streets, institutions, stories, and collective memory?
Ang茅濒颈辩耻别 in Old Montreal
When I first saw the Cit茅 M茅moire video installation on Ang茅濒颈辩耻别 in 2017, during Montreal鈥檚 375th anniversary, I had been living here for two years and had not yet read Afua Cooper鈥檚 monumental book The Hanging of Ang茅濒颈辩耻别: The Untold Story of Canadian Slavery and the Burning of Old Montr茅al published in 2006. In her book, Cooper works with trial records to reconstruct Ang茅濒颈辩耻别鈥檚 life and experience 鈥� these trial records, currently held at the Biblioth猫ques et Archives Nationales du Qu茅bec,[2] are one of the rare instances that extensively record a Black enslaved person in Montreal. Ang茅濒颈辩耻别 was owned by Th茅r猫se de Couagne de Francheville, the widow of merchant Francois Poulin de Francheville. She was enslaved in Canada for nine years. Cooper uncovers Ang茅濒颈辩耻别鈥檚 oral narrative of resistance through the trial records: before the fire of April 10, 1734, Ang茅濒颈辩耻别 had started a fire in another house, trying to escape and telling her mistress she would 鈥渞oast鈥� her.[3] In revealing Ang茅濒颈辩耻别鈥檚 story, Cooper also reframes the history of Old Montreal. The story of the 1734 fire is therefore also an architectural history 鈥� not only one of urban heritage or the destruction of the colonial compound鈥檚 houses, shops, and hospital but one about how architecture bears witness and is complicit in slavery. Cooper calls her book 鈥減art slave narrative, part historical analysis, part biography, part historical archeology:鈥� 鈥渁 female narrative of what is called the Black Atlantic.鈥�[4] She frequently uses architectural and spatial descriptions to qualify the work of historical imagination. She sees arson as a tool of resistance and notes in her introduction:
Did Ang茅濒颈辩耻别 set the fire? Your guess is as good as mine. No one saw her light the spark that started the blaze. All the evidence was circumstantial. But I believe she did set it. She had motive enough. She hated her mistress; she wanted to run away from slavery; and she wanted to leave the American continent altogether. [鈥 Perhaps she set the fire to cover her tracks while fleeing and wreak vengeance upon Montr茅al as a bonus.[5]
The book uncovers in great detail the unjust trial, cruel treatment, and extreme torture Ang茅濒颈辩耻别 was submitted to. In Policing Black Lives, Robyn Maynard similarly argues for histories that consider 鈥淏lack women鈥檚 experiences at the hands of the police as part of a larger Canadian history of state-sanctioned punishment of Black women who fail to be subordinate and docile. This is evidenced most notably,鈥� she says, 鈥渋n the hanging of the eighteenth-century enslaved woman Marie-Joseph Ang茅濒颈辩耻别.鈥�[6] Maynard notes that Ang茅濒颈辩耻别 鈥渟et the terms of Black resistance and refusal.鈥�[7] Are these acts of resistance and refusal apparent in the Cit茅 M茅moire video installation, currently the only tangential trace of Ang茅濒颈辩耻别 in Old Montreal? Yes and no. The video itself is a poetic tribute, dramatically re-enacted and it shows her story in pieces, flashes of very short scenes. The website of the project, however, exhibits disparities between the tone of the video and her placement in the present day. In a section called 鈥�375 Montreal Moments,鈥� in the 鈥�1734鈥� segment, the title identifies Marie-Joseph Ang茅濒颈辩耻别 as 鈥渟lave and arsonist鈥� and the end of the text reads: 鈥淯nder torture, Marie-Joseph-Ang茅濒颈辩耻别 eventually confessed to having started the fire and was sentenced to death. This is one of the few testaments to the presence of Black slaves in New France.鈥�[8] The text makes it sound as if the death sentence was given after Ang茅濒颈辩耻别 confessed to having started the fire (a forced confession obtained under horrendous torture). This is not the case, as the verdict that she was guilty and to be tortured and hanged was given at the end of the trial. The semantic manipulation of the website鈥檚 description takes the blame away from the state and judge who tortured her for a coerced confession and shifts it to Ang茅濒颈辩耻别 as the recipient of the punishment.
Ang茅濒颈辩耻别 in the streets, fictions, stories
Tributes to Marie-Joseph Ang茅濒颈辩耻别 exist across multiple media. Besides Cooper鈥檚 book, perhaps the most comprehensive account available is on the website of the Great Unsolved Mysteries in Canadian History.[9]Extensive information on the context before, during, and after the trial is given, along with 3D reconstructions of the city at the time and a long list of additional resources and archives.[10] However, Ang茅濒颈辩耻别鈥檚 presence resonates beyond the internet: In Mile-End, a stunning piece of street art by MissMe depicts Ang茅濒颈辩耻别, right next to a mural drawing of Leonard Cohen, by the same artist. These are represented like a diptych, perhaps the vicinity of Ang茅濒颈辩耻别 to the most celebrated Montrealer personality, not a coincidence. Across Ang茅濒颈辩耻别鈥檚 portrait, the date of the fire, 1734, is written in a large font. Below 1734, is a ubiquitous Qu茅bec phrase reframed by its immediate context: 鈥淛e me souviens.鈥� Another visual artwork (in a private collection now), 鈥淚ncendiary: Marie-Joseph Ang茅濒颈辩耻别鈥� by the artist Kit Lang centers Ang茅濒颈辩耻别 in front of a night sky, with Old Montreal buildings in a small row below and behind her. Small flames rest on her shoulder and head like a halo against the starry sky. Fire and Fury: The Story of Marie-Joseph Ang茅濒颈辩耻别 is a short film from 2008 and recounts Ang茅濒颈辩耻别鈥檚 trial through the perspective of three people who knew her. Another short film, Howard J. Davis鈥檚 2017 C鈥檈st Moi sets Ang茅濒颈辩耻别, played by Jenny Brizzard, in modern-day Montreal and asks, 鈥渉ow much of our past is erased in the restoration of history?鈥�[11] Brizzard would go on to perform Ang茅濒颈辩耻别 again in the eponymous play by the late actress, director, and playwright Lorena Gale. In this play Ang茅濒颈辩耻别 is presented as innocent, framed by her White lover Claude Thibault, an indentured servant. Black Hands, a docu-film directed by Tetchena Bellange, blends dramatic re-enactments with interviews by historians in an investigative manner. Writer Kaie Kellough reimagines Ang茅濒颈辩耻别 and Montreal in his short story collection Dominoes at the Crossroads. 鈥淟a question ordinaire et extraordinaire,鈥�[12] considers Black experience in the city and an alternate future where Montreal鈥檚 new name is Milieu and Ang茅濒颈辩耻别 is named as an ancestor. The narrator notes 鈥渢he future is encoded in the past鈥� and that the fire Ang茅濒颈辩耻别 lit 鈥渄estroyed the city, but her act forced the citizens to reimagine and rebuild. That history-altering act was carried out by a member of a population that was consistently marginalized.鈥�[13] This first story in the collection takes its title from 鈥渢he ordinary and extraordinary questions鈥� that are the torture afflicted on Ang茅濒颈辩耻别, dating back to the Middle Ages in France. In The Hanging of Ang茅濒颈辩耻别, Afua Cooper reveals in great detail how Ang茅濒颈辩耻别 was tortured and 鈥渟ubmitted to the question.鈥� These are only a few of Ang茅濒颈辩耻别鈥檚 echoes, her places in contemporary Montreal. The first place I had looked for her, however, was naturally the library at my own institution.
Ang茅濒颈辩耻别 at the 成人VR视频 Library
After the first time I read Afua Cooper鈥檚 The Hanging of Ang茅濒颈辩耻别, I went to the library to browse the shelf the book was placed in, to see if there were any other books nearby on histories of marginalized populations in Montreal, histories of slavery in Montreal, or other biographies that uncovered Black enslaved women in Canada. But The Hanging of Ang茅濒颈辩耻别 was not placed among other books about urban histories of Montreal, histories of the African and Caribbean diaspora or histories of slavery in Canada. It was among books about criminals and autobiographies of murderers. Cooper explicitly notes in her book that her work is part of the history of slavery, race studies, and Canadian history. Further, the book鈥檚 subject guides, both those given by the Library of Congress/Library and Archives Canada in the book鈥檚 front matter and the ones on 成人VR视频 Library鈥檚 website did not have keywords like 鈥渢rial鈥� or 鈥渃riminal studies.鈥� The subject guides of the book are listed as follows:
1. Ang茅濒颈辩耻别, Marie-Joseph. 2. Slaves-Qu茅bec (Province)-Montr茅al-Biography. 3. Fires-Qu茅bec (Province) -Montr茅al-History-18th century. 4.Montr茅al (Qu茅bec)-History-18th century. 5. Black Canadian women-Qu茅bec (Province) -Montr茅al-Biography. 6. Montr茅al (Qu茅bec) -Biography. 7. Slavery-Canada-History-18th century.[14]
Was this data bias, or an individual鈥檚 choice to place it there? Indexing of a book does not always happen on-site at an institution and is sometimes outsourced. Nonetheless, the metadata and indexing of the book had nothing suggesting that its place should be this one. When I asked the library鈥檚 architecture liaison librarian, David Green, how the physical placement (despite the subject guides) of a book gets decided, he kindly offered to ask the library鈥檚 collections team. The library let us know that the institution and cataloguer who had originally assigned the call number for the book likely thought they were classifying it under 鈥渢rials,鈥� perhaps based on the chapter titles of the book. The 成人VR视频 Library then changed the book鈥檚 classification to 鈥淏iography of slaves鈥� and moved it to another section. The book now shares a shelf with (auto)biographies and travel accounts of Olaudah Equiano, the 18th-century writer and abolitionist also known as Gustavus Vassa, who wrote听The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa, the African in 1791 and abolitionist Mary Prince, who wrote The History of Mary Prince, A West Indian Slave in 1831.
The Displacing of Ang茅濒颈辩耻别
I go back to the blind wall on Rue Saint-Fran莽ois Xavier. It鈥檚 another cold Friday night. A shortened version of the initial video installation is playing now. We see only glimpses of Ang茅濒颈辩耻别鈥檚 story in this version: she appears momentarily, then the child who accuses her. We see Ang茅濒颈辩耻别 running, escaping. While she runs, her body morphs into the running figure of Jackie Robinson, the first Black baseball player to play in Major League Baseball in the United States in 1947 and who played for the Montreal Royals in 1946. The Cit茅 M茅moire video thus historically links two black people who inhabited Montreal, as if interchangeable. Ang茅濒颈辩耻别鈥檚 escape becomes Robinson鈥檚 homerun. In the collective memory of the city, in its archives, its institutions, its stories, the placing of Marie-Joseph Ang茅濒颈辩耻别 is ongoing, as is her displacement.
听
References:
鈥�1734 鈥� Marie-Joseph Ang茅濒颈辩耻别, slave and arsonist.鈥� 375 Montreal Moments. Montr茅al en Histoires.
听
鈥淧roc茅dures criminelles contre Marie-Joseph Ang茅濒颈辩耻别, n茅gresse (femme de race noire) esclave appartenant 脿 la demoiselle Th茅r猫se de Couagne, veuve de Fran莽ois Poulin, sieur de Francheville, accus茅e d'avoir allum茅 le grand incendie qui d茅vasta une partie de cette ville en 1734.鈥� Collection Pi猫ces judiciaires et notariales, TL5,D1036. Biblioth猫ques et Archives Nationales du Qu茅bec.
听
鈥淭orture and Truth: Ang茅濒颈辩耻别 and the Burning of Montreal.鈥� Great Unsolved Mysteries in Canadian History.
听
Cooper, Afua. The Hanging of Ange虂lique: The Untold Story of Canadian Slavery and the Burning of Old Montre虂al. Race in the Atlantic World, 1700-1900. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2007.
听
Kellough, Kaie. Dominoes at the Crossroads: Stories. Edited by Dimitri Nasrallah. Montre虂al, Que虂bec, Canada: Esplanade Books, the fiction imprint at Ve虂hicule Press, 2020.
听
Maynard, Robyn. Policing Black Lives: State Violence in Canada from Slavery to the Present. Black Point, Nova Scotia: Fernwood Publishing, 2017.
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[1] Afua Cooper, The Hanging of Ange虂lique: The Untold Story of Canadian Slavery and the Burning of Old Montre虂al, (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2007).
[2] The documents are digitized and accessible to the public: 鈥淧roc茅dures criminelles contre Marie-Joseph Ang茅濒颈辩耻别, n茅gresse (femme de race noire) esclave appartenant 脿 la demoiselle Th茅r猫se de Couagne, veuve de Fran莽ois Poulin, sieur de Francheville, accus茅e d'avoir allum茅 le grand incendie qui d茅vasta une partie de cette ville en 1734,鈥� Collection Pi猫ces judiciaires et notariales, TL5,D1036, Biblioth猫ques et Archives Nationales du Qu茅bec, (last accessed February 28, 2022).
[3] Afua Cooper, The Hanging of Ange虂lique, 12.
[4] Ibid.
[5] Ibid., 9.
[6] Robyn Maynard, Policing Black Lives: State Violence in Canada from Slavery to the Present, (Black Point, Nova Scotia: Fernwood Publishing, 2017), 116.
[7] Ibid., 230.
[8] 鈥�1734 鈥� Marie-Joseph Ang茅濒颈辩耻别, slave and arsonist,鈥� 375 Montreal Moments, Montr茅al en Histoires, (last accessed February 28, 2022).
[9] 鈥淭orture and Truth: Ang茅濒颈辩耻别 and the Burning of Montreal,鈥� Great Unsolved Mysteries in Canadian History, (Last accessed February 28, 2022).
[10] The subsection on Ang茅濒颈辩耻别 is the result of major collaborative work among multiple institutions, archives, and teams. The project co-directors are Dr. John Lutz, Dr. Ruth Sandwell, and Dr. Peter Gossage.
[11] 鈥淐鈥檈st Moi,鈥� . (Last accessed February 26, 2022).
[12] Kaie Kellough, Dominoes at the Crossroads: Stories, (Montre虂al: Esplanade Books, the fiction imprint at Ve虂hicule Press, 2020), 11-24.
[13] Ibid., 22.
[14] Afua Cooper, The Hanging of Ange虂lique, frontmatter.
