“The Hanging of Angelique”: Uncovering Canada's 200 year old secret

The front cover of the November 2019 Catholic Teacher Magazine depicts a black female student with the caption at the bottom stating “Challenges Faced by Black Students “the issue’s title is “We Deserve Better” (oecta). Within this issue the following recommendations are made by OECTA’s Diversity Advisory Board, in order to help close the Achievement Gap, the number two recommendation is “More books by Black authors in the school curriculum…” , followed by the number three recommendation “Black history to be part of the curriculum from elementary to post-secondary school for all students.” (oecta). Clearly for an issue such as the achievement of Black students in our school system to take front cover demonstrates its importance. Toronto has been grappling with Black students’ achievement –gaps based on race since approximately 2016 when York Pro. Carl James conducted a study which was titled, “We Still Rise” (James) . The study which took place over three years established that in , 2016 there needed to be an action plan to support Black males (James). The 3 Year Plan was specifically designed to address the fact that “Black male students feel excluded by their peers and teachers, and do not see positive representations of themselves in school.” (James). Nevertheless, there is a way to close the achievement gap for Black students for example, if curriculum included the black experience by black authors, it would help Black students understand their history and therefore themselves, when students see themselves in the curriculum, it helps them realize they can achieve and are valued. Hence by including Afua Cooper’s novel “The Hanging of Angelique” into the secondary curriculum in a unit that could help teach Anti-black Racism and Black history in Canada in order to help give voice to the Black students that desperately need representation in order to achieve.

Afua Cooper’s “The Hanging of Angelique: The Untold Story of Canadian Slavery And The Burning of Old Montreal” is a non-fiction novel filled with historical evidence surrounding the burning of Old Montreal. Afua Cooper brilliantly describes the harrowing journey of Marie- Joseph Angelique an Portuguese-born Black woman enslaved who is accused of starting a fire, found guilty and sentenced to death. The book uncovers the complicated relationship between a slave woman and her owner, for example “Slave woman and slave mistress declared a psychological war on each other and bided their time. Madame Franchevillle had the Upper hand….” (Cooper). Despite being novel the book helps to educate the audience on issues surrounding slavery, namely, that Canada took part in it and was not only the haven for many Black people at the end of the Underground Railroad, by uncovering this myth, Afua Cooper’s novel would help deal with anti-blackness in our education system, by exploring Black Canadian history and helping to uncover its truth and systemic discriminatory legacy , that in turn leads to achievement gaps for Black students.

In Canada we tend to pride ourselves on our multiculturalism, the idea that we are a diverse nation, accept all and was even a haven for slaves, we were the light at the end of the tunnel – the North Star. In order to, however, truly create inclusion in Canada including the novel “The Hanging of Angelique: The untold Story of Canadian Slavery And the Burning of Old Montreal” into highschool curriculmn would not just work for diversity, but would encourage antiblackness, therefore, not just encourage diversity for the sake of multiculturalism, but it would be working towards antiblackness, The novels Forward written by George Ellliot Clarke is filled with Black Canadian history that uncovers the slavery that existed in Canada (Walcott) .

By incorporating the novel, “The Hanging of Angelique” into the curriculum it will help students but also help teachers understand Black students by actually examining the achievement gap for Black students we need to understand that the lack of achievement of Black students has a lot to do with the anti-black curriculum, but also with the fact many non-Black teachers have “very little exposure to Black people outside of school, are responsible for educating of a population of children they have never been taught to teach.” (Ali Michael).

Therefore, by educating our students on Black Canadian history, teachers would also be educating themselves and therefore increasing their understanding of the Black Canadian experience and the discriminatory treatment that still exists today. By including this into our curriculum we would be educating ourselves, but also getting over at times, an unspoken fear of Blackness and build our competency in Black-Canadian experience and therefore understanding of our students. This will help change the system built on historical ideology that white is right and Black is wrong (Ali Michael).v

A social justice mandate for Canada should be for Canadian citizens to be educated on our Canadian identity where forms this country, how they came here the government has now somewhat recognized the wrongs we did to our First Nations People, for example by incorporating land acknowledgements into the beginning of schools days as well as educating future generations in the classroom of cultural genocide that was initiated by the government, for example our first Prime Minister, Sir John A. Macdonald stated “The objective was to 'take the Indian out of the child,' and thus to solve what John A. Macdonald referred to as the 'Indian problem.'" (Finn). This was done by instituting residential schools in order “to kill the Indian in the child” (Finn). The legacy of such discriminatory policy is evident when one sees statistics regarding our First Nations People, for example, First Nations suicide rate three times higher than for non-Indigenous people (Stober).

One can argue that similar to our treatment of our First Nations People, the government should be mindful of its treatment of Black Canadians in history and should acknowledgement it the 200 years of slavery that helped build the country. For example the United Nations stated, in a 2017 report by the United Nations Human Rights Working group called on Canada to recognize the lasting damage done by slavery and segregation. (ideas)Our colonial past and subjugation of people is such a well kept secret, that Prime Minister Stephen Harper famously said “ Canada has no history of colonialism” (Wherry). Nevertheless, this is not our only Prime Minister that lacks a history of Canada that includes the roles of racialized people, and therefore cultural understanding and racial sensitivity. For example, this year photos of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau were uncovered where he adorned Brown-face/Black-face. If the high-school curriculum were to include “The Hanging of Angelique” and be imbedded in a unit that helped to uncover issues within Black history, - Perhaps our Prime Ministers would be more aware (Thomspon).

It not due to lack of evidence that we have omitted our slavery history. It is very well documented we have advertisements for slaves on sale or for missing slaves, we have bill of sales, court cases, such as Marie- Joseph Angelique, all well documented, all of this evidence could be used while learning about “The Hanging of Angelique”and Black history in Canada, this education over years would lead to an erasure of Anti-Black sentiments . Canadian citizens deserve to know the true history of the land they live on, who built it, moreover Black Canadians deserve recognition for the 200 years of unpaid labour and horrific slave conditions that contributed to forming our Nation (Nelson).