The legacy of Angélique in late 20th-century Black Canadian drama

Abstract

This article examines the complex issue of Black heroism through the legacy of the figure of the enslaved Portuguese woman Angélique, who set Montreal on fire in 1734. It looks into how late-20th-century artists have engaged in recuperating this figure through the analysis of two specific iterations, the plays of Lorena Gale (Angélique, 1999) and George Elliott Clarke (Beatrice Chancy, 1999). The article contributes to critical readings to date in arguing that these texts represent the enslaved subject as agent and not as victim, in line with recent changes in Black historiography, and that they constitute cultural interventions that aim to bring into focus the still largely unaddressed history of Black enslavement in Canada. Further, it adds a consideration of the plays’ currency nowadays insofar as their plot and characterization stress continuities between past and present struggles against pervasive forms of anti-Black violence.