The Journal of Negro History, Volume 5, 1920Various
History
The Journal of Negro History, Volume 5, 1920
Various
African Americans -- Periodicals
This ordinance was not a dead letter. On February 8, 1734, Gilles
Hocquart, the Intendant at Quebec issued an ordinance in which he
recited that in 1732 Captain Joanne of the Navy brought a Carib slave
of his to Canada and employed him as a sailor; that he had deserted
when Captain Joanne was ready to embark for the West Indies; and that
the master had seen and recognized him a short time theretofore in the
Parish of St. Augustine but on reclaiming him certain evil-disposed
persons had facilitated his escape. The ordinance directed all
captains and officers of the militia to give their assistance to the
master in recovering the Carib slave and forbade all persons to
conceal him or facilitate his escape on pain of fine or worse.[9]
Slavery thereafter tended to expand. The Edict of October 1727
concerning the American islands and colonies and therefore including
Canada in the preamble spoke of the islands and colonies being in a
condition to support a considerable navigation and commerce by the
consumption and trade of Negroes, goods and merchandise, and the
measures taken to furnish the necessary Negroes, goods and
merchandise. It was decreed that only such Negroes, goods, and
merchandise should be received by the islands and colonies as should
be brought in French bottoms. Very explicit and rigid regulations were
made to that end.
Some of these slaves were too vindictive to be good servants. There is
given by Abbe Gosselin in a paper in the _Transactions, Royal Society
of Canada for 1900_, an account of a mutiny of part of the garrison at
Niagara incited by a Panis probably in the service of an officer at
the post. Some of the mutineers were sentenced to death but made their
escape while the Panis, Charles, was sent to Martinique with a request
to the authorities to make him a slave and to take every precaution
that he should not escape to Canada or even to the English colonies. A
female slave of color belonging to Mme. de Francheville who had been
bought in the English Colonies set fire to her mistress' home the
night of the 10-11 April 1734, thus causing a conflagration which
destroyed a part of the city of Montreal. The unfortunate slave was
apprehended and tried for the crime then and for long after a capital
felony. Being found guilty, she was hanged June, 1734.
The increase in the number of slaves made necessary some regulation
concerning their liberation. September 1, 1736, Gilles Hocquart, the
Intendant already mentioned, made an ordinance concerning the
formalities requisite in the enfranchisement of slaves. Reciting that
he had been informed that certain persons in Canada had freed their
slaves without any other formality than verbally giving them their
liberty, and the necessity of fixing in an invariable manner the
status of slaves who should be enfranchised, he ordered that for the
future all enfranchisements should be by notarial act and that all
other attempted enfranchisements should be null and void.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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