Marie-Josèphe dite Angélique (died June 21, 1734) was the name given to a Portuguese-born black slave in New France by her last enslavers. She was tried and convicted of setting fire to her enslaver's home, burning much of what is now referred to as Old Montreal. It had been generally accepted that Angélique was guilty, but it has recently been argued that she was innocent of the crime and was convicted more on the basis of her reputation as a rebellious runaway slave than on the basis of factual evidence. A competing theory is that she was guilty of the crime but was acting in rebellion against slavery. No consensus has been reached by historians regarding Angélique's actual guilt or innocence.
Early life
Angélique was born around 1705 in Madeira, a possession of Portugal in the Atlantic. At some point, she was in possession of a Flemish man named Nichus Block or Nicolas Bleeker who brought her to the New World. She lived in New England before being sold in 1725 to an important French businessman from Montreal named François Poulin de Francheville, and after his death in 1733, belonged to his wife Thérèse de Couagne. Slavery in New England and New France was primarily a domestic affair, since unlike the southern part of what would become the United States, the economy was not based on large-scale plantation labour. Angélique therefore worked in the Francheville home in Montreal, and occasionally helped on the family's small farm on the island of Montreal, which was primarily used to produce supplies for Francheville's trading expeditions.
Angélique had three children while in Montréal: a boy born in 1731 who lived only one month and twins in 1732, who both died within five months. The father listed in the baptismal records was Jacques César, a black slave from Madagascar who belonged to Ignace Gamelin, a friend of Francheville. It is not known whether Angélique and César were lovers by choice or whether they were forced by their owners to have children (the children of slaves became themselves slaves and the property of the mother's owners).
During the year preceding the fire and the trial, Angélique became involved in a relationship with a white indentured servant, Claude Thibault, who was employed by the Franchevilles. Following the death of Francheville in November 1733, Mme Francheville became occupied with many transactions in the course of operating his businesses and settling his estate. Early in 1734, being occupied with estate affairs in Trois-Rivières, the widow asked her brother-in-law Alexis Monière to keep both her slave and her indentured servant Claude Thibault for her until her return.
On February 22, while the widow Francheville was still away, Angélique and Thibault attempted to escape to New England, fleeing across the frozen St. Lawrence river and stopping to retrieve bread that Thibault had hidden in a barn in Longueuil in preparation for their flight. However, the difficulty of winter travel forced the two to take refuge in Châteauguay, near the Chambly road, until the weather improved. They were captured a couple of weeks later and returned to Montreal by three militia captains, acting in their capacity as local police. Thibault was imprisoned on March 5 and only released on April 8, the day before the fire. Angélique visited him several times while he was in jail and brought him food.
Angélique was simply returned to Madame de Francheville, who did not have her disciplined in any way for her attempted flight, possibly because she was already planning to sell her. As mentioned during the trial, Thérèse de Francheville found herself unable to control Angélique and intended to accept an offer by one of her deceased husband's business associates, François-Étienne Cugnet, to purchase her for 600 pounds of gunpowder. The offer was conditional on the widow covering expenses for sending Angélique to Quebec City, where Cugnet lived. Fear of being sold and possibly ending up in the West Indies may have been a factor in the attempted escape.
Tension was high between the slave and her mistress. The widow Francheville dismissed a free servant, Louise Poirier, because of squabbling and disagreements between slave and servant. Angélique promised her that she could do all the work better than Poirier, possibly hoping that a good performance on her part would make her mistress relent and keep her. The widow gave in, but promised Poirier that she would contact her after Angélique had been shipped to Quebec City.