When we talk about the presence of slavery in New France, I feel pain for my identity. The idea that my ancestors could have indulged in this inhuman practice hurts me. I know, as recent studies show, that slavery runs through the entire history of the world, and almost everywhere on the planet, but I would have liked my people not to have been involved in this calamity.
The facts, unfortunately, force me to disabuse myself. In 1960, in fact, the historian Marcel Trudel, after rigorous research in civil status registers (baptisms, marriages and burials), established that New France, too, had indeed been, to its extent, a slaveholder, like the mother country and like Great Britain.
In his Dictionaries of slaves and their owners in French Canadapublished in 1990, Trudel identified 4,092 slaves over a century, including 2,692 Aboriginals and 1,400 Blacks. The enslaved Aboriginals, he specified in Myths and realities in the history of Quebec (BQ, 2006), did not come from peoples allied with the French. Rather, they were members of the Panis nation, whose territory was located in the Missouri basin.
In the fur trade, French merchants received “gifts” from their native allies of people, often very young, and made them their property. Black slaves, for their part, were often “war booty taken from the English during raids on New York or Massachusetts or acquired by merchants during their voyages to the Antilles,” writes Trudel.
In the Spring 2024 issue of the excellent Review of the history of New Francea team of researchers, led by historian Dominique Deslandres, a specialist in ancient Quebec, is returning to the issue by taking it a step further.
Trudel, says Deslandres, did an extraordinary pioneering job, but he considered slavery here “as a minor phenomenon,” as the business of a few rich people who often treated their slaves with a certain benevolence. In doing so, adds the historian, he fed the myth of a gentle slavery.
Trudel, however, is not so naive. In Myths and realities in the history of Quebeche disputes the “idyllic picture” painted by “historians of great families”, which shows “black or Amerindian slaves perfectly integrated into their environment”. In the old bourgeoisie, he specifies, the servant is never considered a member of the family and the slave, lower in the social scale, even less.
Deslandres, to illustrate the cruelty of the phenomenon, highlights “the extreme youth of a large part of the enslaved indigenous population.” Between 1632 and 1760, 2,199 slaves were counted. The ages of 1,574 of them are known and 734 of them are under 12 years old. According to researcher Cathie-Anne Dupuis, until 1759, “half of indigenous male slaves died before the age of 17.” After the Conquest and until the abolition of slavery in 1834, it was worse: the median age at death was 11 years. For indigenous female slaves, the equivalent figures were 21 and 13 years.
According to Deslandres, the bizarre idea of having a slave child could be explained by the desire to “ensure a peaceful retirement, safe from the greed of the heirs.” These children, given “as gifts” by indigenous allies already familiar with this practice before the arrival of the Europeans, had their destiny stolen from them.
Historians engaged in this research are particularly interested in the agency of slaves, that is, their capacity to act for themselves. By searching through judicial and notarial archives, Catherine Lampron discovered the story of five slaves, including the famous Marie-Josèphe-Angélique, accused of setting fire to Montreal in 1734, who found themselves before the courts after acts of revolt. Prevented freedom is rarely a source of quiet happiness.
In a moving contribution, doctoral student Astrid Girault, originally from Guadeloupe, examines the practice of African dances by slaves in the French Lesser Antilles in the 17th century.e century, in order to illustrate the struggle of these enslaved people for their cultural survival.
Two French missionaries are surprised that slaves take advantage of all their free time, including at night, to dance, despite their fatigue. They do not understand, says Girault, that these dances have a spiritual and cultural dimension for the slaves. They “are therefore essential to their survival in a hostile environment that aims to take away everything that makes up their essence.”
The desire for freedom and the expression of identity are irrepressible and beautiful.