Tortured
and hanged in 1734 for setting a fire that burned down one-10th of
Montréal, Marie-Josèphe-Angélique has been
embraced as either a feminist icon rebelling against the bonds of
slavery, or a beautiful black woman whose only crime was the colour of
her skin.
Gazette Journalist Anne
Sutherland
The victim was condemned because she was a woman, she was beautiful,
she was black and she was a slave.
Publisher André
Bastien
I worked on this, off and on, for about 10 years. What struck me was
that, although there were 22 witnesses, no one saw anything, but all
were certain that the
'negress' had set the fire.
Author Denyse
Beaugrand-Champagne
Read an
excerpt kindly translated by R. A. McGee.
|
At book launch, the
author (left)
with Maryse Alcindor,
Québec Deputy Minister of
Immigration. |
