"Anyone desperate to believe that Canada was slave-free, or that Canadian slavery was gentle, must close this book now."

So states George Elliott Clarke in the introduction to Afua Cooper's work.

"But those seeking truth, those who want to understand Canada’s settler-barbarism, will find this book impossible to ignore and impossible to forget."

He's right: this book is impossible to ignore.

But the subject of slavery in Canada can be ignored -- and, indeed has been ignored in classrooms.

I was taught about The Underground Railroad and the route that slaves in the United States followed to freedom in Canada; I was not taught that there was slavery in Canada, too, nor about the kind of persecution that refugees faced here when they arrived, when they were "free".

Afua Cooper's book does work to fill that gap, but, first, readers are introduced to Angélique, and brought into the city of Montreal in a very rich passage; Afua Cooper walks the streets, and urges you to walk alongside her (searching for images online can bring particular buildings in Old Montreal off the page even more).

After a brief sketch of Angélique's trial, readers are whisked back into time, largely to understand the twists and turns in Angélique's life that brought her, born in Portugal, to Old Montreal.

She may have been born to a woman who was a slave, so that she inherited her status, and she lived within/under four empires during her brief life, enslaved, before she was hanged.

This is where Afua Cooper's history lesson comes in handy: how Portugal instigated the slave trade, how other nations entered and perpetuated it, the development of colonial territories on the backs of enslaved labourers around the world, the contrasting conditions under which they suffered and resisted and lived and died (which varied according to time and place and circumstance).

So this is the story of Marie-Joseph Angélique, a 29-year-old woman. She took walks by the banks of the river, was friendly with a neighbouring slave girl, and had two love affairs, before she was accused of burning Old Montreal in 1734.

It's the story of...many other things as well. If you're curious, the full response is here. ( )

"Anyone desperate to believe that Canada was slave-free, or that Canadian slavery was gentle, must close this book now."

So states George Elliott Clarke in the introduction to Afua Cooper's work.

"But those seeking truth, those who want to understand Canada’s settler-barbarism, will find this book impossible to ignore and impossible to forget."

He's right: this book is impossible to ignore.

But the subject of slavery in Canada can be ignored -- and, indeed has been ignored in classrooms.

I was taught about The Underground Railroad and the route that slaves in the United States followed to freedom in Canada; I was not taught that there was slavery in Canada, too, nor about the kind of persecution that refugees faced here when they arrived, when they were "free".

Afua Cooper's book does work to fill that gap, but, first, readers are introduced to Angélique, and brought into the city of Montreal in a very rich passage; Afua Cooper walks the streets, and urges you to walk alongside her (searching for images online can bring particular buildings in Old Montreal off the page even more).

After a brief sketch of Angélique's trial, readers are whisked back into time, largely to understand the twists and turns in Angélique's life that brought her, born in Portugal, to Old Montreal.

She may have been born to a woman who was a slave, so that she inherited her status, and she lived within/under four empires during her brief life, enslaved, before she was hanged.

This is where Afua Cooper's history lesson comes in handy: how Portugal instigated the slave trade, how other nations entered and perpetuated it, the development of colonial territories on the backs of enslaved labourers around the world, the contrasting conditions under which they suffered and resisted and lived and died (which varied according to time and place and circumstance).

So this is the story of Marie-Joseph Angélique, a 29-year-old woman. She took walks by the banks of the river, was friendly with a neighbouring slave girl, and had two love affairs, before she was accused of burning Old Montreal in 1734.

It's the story of...many other things as well. If you're curious, the full response is here. ( )

An important, wide-ranging history focusing on a slave woman and the context of life in colonial Montreal, slavery in Canada and the international Atlanta Slave Trade.

Afua Cooper tells the story of Marie-Joseph Angelique, a slave woman who is believed to have started the massive fire which destroyed the merchant section of Montreal in 1734. Fleshing out her story, Cooper provide abundant historical contexts so that readers can see the larger stories of which Angelique was a part. At times, the context pulls away from Angelique’s particular story, diminishing the unity of the book. For those of us unfamiliar with the global dimensions of slavery, however, the larger pictures she provides are invaluable.

Read more http://wp.me/p24OK2-nr

I'm part way through "The Hanging of Angelique", which is about the Atlantic Slave Trade in Canada. I know that Canadian history rarely, if *ever*, talks about our history of slavery, so this whole book has been both appalling and eye-opening for me.

Basically, Angelique was accused of burning down Montreal in the 1700s (the book's at home right now, so I'm fuzzy on the details). She had been a slave coming out of Portugal (I am learning so much about the Atlantic Slave Trade this school-year, between my class on Forced & Free Immigration to Latin America and this book), been taken to New York, and then brought up to Canada. The author, who dedicates the book to our then-new Govenor General, believes that Angelique's testimony about herself and her life may be the first Slave Narrative in North America, because she goes into so much detail about her experiences as a Slave, and about her *rage*.

It's a hard read for me, because I *like* the idea that Canada is a Post-Racist Utopia. I want to believe our only connection to the Slave Trade in North America is the end of the Underground Railway. But it's not. And just like we shouldn't ignore Africville here in Halifax, or Priceville in Ontario, we shouldn't ignore this.

Sadly, none of my reading right now *at all* is fluffy, or even fiction, so I have no recommendations, but if you want to get an idea of what's going on in Canadian historic circles right now, this may be a good book.

If you are looking for a historical work, you'll be disappointed. If you are looking for a reliable biography, you'll also be disappointed. But if you are looking for a highly speculative biography based on shaky history, you've come to the right place! Cooper's book stats out with a brilliant few chapters on the history of the Atlantic slave trade. Unfortunately, in an attempt to personalize the story of Canadian slavery, Cooper then attaches this history to the loose narrative of slave woman Angelique. What ensues is a highly speculative account of Angelique's life - complete with imagined dialogue between her and others - which reads more like a historical fiction than a biography. This book is an entertaining read, but it neither paints a complete picture of Canadian slavery nor an accurate one. Back to the drawing board miss Cooper! ( )