This work investigates the life and trial of Marie-Joseph Angélique, a black enslaved woman in 18th-century Montréal, to challenge the historical erasure of slavery in Canada. Afua Cooper, a historian and poet, utilizes fifteen years of archival research to reconstruct the events surrounding the 1734 fire that consumed much of the city. By centering the narrative on Angélique’s resistance, the author exposes the systemic legal and cultural frameworks that sustained human bondage in colonial Canada for two centuries.

This text serves as a rigorous historical intervention that forces a re-evaluation of the Canadian national narrative regarding race and labor. The research provides a dense, evidence-based account that effectively dismantles long-standing myths about the history of slavery in the region.