Angelique and the burning of montreal Essay

The sidereal twenty-four hour period was April 10th 1734 and Montreal was on fire. Undoubtedly back then, Montreal was a very disparate place than it is to twenty-four hour period it was a trade and military town of or so 2000 people. Canada would still have 100 years before she became a tribe and it was a time when Montreals social class mirrored that of its endemic home France. Slavery was very much a part of casual society and many citizens had knuckle downs of African and Amerindian descent. No star on that day could have possibly foreseen what was to come and the replications it would have for centuries to come.It was an unusually mild Saturday eve and the people who had attended eventide prayer were beginning to make their counsel home. Among them was Thrse de Couagne, widow of Franois Poulin de Francheville and the owner of Anglique a slave of African American decent who was born in Portugal and after sell into New France. At seven the sentry sounded the alarm fir e, that evening a devastating fire occurred in Montral that destroyed a hospital and 45 houses on rue Saint-Paul. Some iodine was to blame for this cataclysm and it was Angelique.After macrocosm tried and convicted of vista fire to her owners home, burning much of what is now referred to as Old Montreal, she was hanged. In read to get a stronger chthonianstanding of abuse and penalization in New-France, unitary must examine the trial in a much more than in depth context.The justice system in 1700 Montreal followed the same rules as its mother country France. In terms of todays society, the regimen was far less democratic. The charge had few rights and the evidence was a great deal untimely or establish on word of mouth torture and tough punishments were a good deal used. In 1734, the various stages of trial, duties of the philanders, witnesses, and rights of the accused were regulated by the Ordonnance du Roi (1670). practically the accused had no access to legal phi losophyyers as they were forbidden in New-France expression VIII. The accused, whatever their status may be, allow for be required to react in their own words, without the advice of counsel, which will not be given to them, not even following the confrontation, notwithstanding all contrary modes that we abrogate. (1)Also, trials were often held without a jury (2) thus the accused stood alone in front of a judge in order to prove his or her innocence. Undoubtedly, the French jurisprudence formed a very tight and respected system. The pursuit witnesses were often intimidated by court staff witnesses for the accused were rarely presented, and the succeeding(a) of the accused depended on his or her testimony (3). In many instances, diminished or no facts were required to be prosecuted.In the case of Anglique, the day after the fire a rumour circulated which accused her and her lover Claude Thibault of setting the fire that destroyed a majority of Montreal (4). The kings prosecut or relied on this rumour to have the two suspects arrested. At the time, French law allowed a suspect to be arrested found on public knowledge (5), when the community agreed that a suspect was immoral (6) The Kings Prosecutor Advises You that according to Public Report, the Fire that occurred in this city on the day of yesterday at around seven in the evening was caused by the Negress, Slave of the widow of Sieur franchevilleThis considered, Monsieur, may it please you to allow the say Kings Prosecutor to have this investigated, and meanwhile to have arrested and taken to the Royal gaol of this city the said Negress. (7)In the event of a death sentence, the prosecutor was required under the Ordonnance criminelle of 1670, to appeal the sentence in the name of the accused (8). New-France considered the following as offensives crimes against religion, crimes against morality, crimes against peace, and crimes against public safety (2). distributively type of crime had its own fo rm of punishment. The title of Religious crime was only when considered if some form of sacrilege took place as sound as if there was a direct attack against thechurch.A crime against morality would in addition glint the nature of the crime although, the idea of a morally just 1734 citizen varies greatly from a morally just mortal today. Many were deprived of social pleasures that society attached to moral purity, if one did not exercise a life of moral purity he or she could be fined, shamed, sentenced to a life in hiding, or banished from the city and from society (2). A crime against peace would also often reflect the requirement of retaliation. This was done through prison sentences, exile, punitive measures etc.The correctional measures were used to rehabilitate or return the criminal to a frequent state. Lastly, crimes against public safety were most well known as eye-for-an-eye retribution. The punishments handed down for such crimes would reflect the nature of the c rime and was based on reason as well as on the judgment of right and wrong. Crimes against theft were met by a loss of property however, because those who take had few riches, capital punishment (death) was used as a path to replace financial retribution. If one murdered another, the penalty was almost eternally death (usually by hanging).Criminal trials were often a means for retribution for a crime against society (9). When evidence was lacking, the prosecution would ask licence to apply torture prior to a proper judgment. Many examples of uncouth punishments (ie torture) existJean Baptiste Thomas negro and Francois Darles were condemned to be hanged, Charlotte Martin Ondoy and Marie Vennes were beaten and castigated with the rod, and Charlotte Darragon was admonished, Thomas negro having been found guilty of Domestic thievery, Francois Darles of having concealed the items, Charlotte Martin Ondoy, and Marie Vennes guilty of possessing some stolen items of little consequence. This sentence was executed on the 23 of rarified in Montral where the crime was committed. (10)Moreover, the most common form of punishment was The Boot.(2) It consisted of four control boards of wound tied to the legs of the accused. Two of those planks were placed between the criminals legs, and the other two on the outside of the legs. All were springiness with rope. A wedge was then pounded between the planks on the inside, causing the plank to spread and the ropeto tighten. The pressure of the wedge would often break the accused legs (sometimes just merely dislocating them).This practice was used as a method of extracting the truth and was excruciatingly painful (10). Torture in New-France was widely used, oddly when the accused would not reveal their accomplices (if any) or admit to their guilt (2). In Angliques case, upon appeal, she was sentenced to death, but the manner in which it was to be carried out was obtuse she would not have her hand severed and she would be h anged before being burned.(7) More importantly, she was subjected to torture by the boot(4) but she never revealed any accomplice, stating that only she had started the fire.(10) Subsequent to her admission, she was executed.In the end, crime in 1734 was not seen lightly and often carried severe punishments. Perhaps fear of such severe punishment, of being arrested based on rumours and faulty evidence was supposed to act as a deterrent. Although evidence of Angeliques trial such as court documents does exist, the lack of concrete proof of guilt obscures the events and subsequent truth of that night.She was sentenced to prosecution based solely off of rumours and word of mouth, and whether she had a past of cataclysmic and rebellious nature or not, that in no way under a court of law in todays standards leads one to believe she is or ever was guilty. This, however, has not prohibited her story from congruous almost legend. Many authors and figures in our society today, 200 years la ter utilize her story as leverage.Angelique is seen as an African American slave activist who stood up against her superiors and common law for the better of humanity. She is also viewed as the perfect example of why the old dark slipway of our justice system is faulty and raises questions about the power of government and the peril of whether or not that power can condemn an innocent charwoman for 200 years without question.Conclusively, because the prosecution at her trial did not foregather the burden proof (by todays standards), it is impossible to know if she very was guilty. One way or another her trial and story will continue to echo in Canadian history.Bibliography1. Louis XIV, mapping relative to the examination of the accused, in lOrdonnance pour les matires criminelles (Chez les Associs, 1670). 2. http//www.canadianmysteries.ca/sites/ angelique/contexte/lajustice/indexen.html 3. Criminal proceduresSecondat might de La Brde et de Montesqieu, Charles-Louis de, Reflec tions on criminal procedures in England and in France, in De lesprit des loix (Amsterdam et Leipsick Nouvelle dition, revue, corrige et considrablement augmente par lauteur , Chez Arkste et Merkus, n.d.), T. 3, L. 29 p. 308-9. 4. http//www.canadianmysteries.ca/sites/angelique/proces/indexen.html 5. Criminal procedure against the accused narration nationales du Qubec, Centre de Montral, Procedure Criminel contre Marie Joseph Anglique negresse Incendiere, 1734, TL4 S1, 4136, Juridiction royale de Montral, Deposition of tienne Volant Radisson, April 14, 1734, 1-4.) 6. Archives nationales du Qubec, Centre de Montral, Procedure Criminel contre Marie Joseph Anglique negresse Incendiere, 1734, TL4 S1, 4136, Juridiction royale de Montral, Request by the Kings prosecutor for the arrest of Anglique and of Claude Thibault, April 11, 1734, 1. 7. http//www.canadianmysteries.ca/sites/angelique/proces/jugementetappel/indexen.html8. Criminal trial Diderot, Denis et Jean le Rond dAlembert, The cr iminal trial, in lEncyclopdie, ou Dictionnaire Raisonn des Sciences, des Arts et des Mtiers (Paris Briasson et autres, n.d.), tome XIII, rascal 405.9. Examples of punishmentFrance. Archives nationales, Fonds des Colonies. Srie C11A. Correspondance gnrale, Canada, vol 64, fol. 12-15v, Hocquart, Gilles, earn to the Ministre de la Marine, October 1, 1735,10. Admission of guiltGermain, Jean-Claude, The Life and Times of Montral (Montral Stank, 1994), tome I, pages 284-28. 4 . Relying on the Ordonnance criminelle of 1670, the kings prosecutor had an arrest free issued against Anglique based solely on this public rumour. (http//www.canadianmysteries.ca/sites/angelique/proces/indexen.html)