"My argument is that War makes rattling good history, but Peace is poor reading." -- Thomas Hardy

There's plenty of history in Old Montreal, much of it rattling good. Stroll along the Place d'Armes and you'll see the chiselled brick slab that reminds you not far from this spot, Paul de Chomedey, Sieur de Maisonneuve, founder of the religious colony that would become Montreal, engaged in a one-sided firefight in 1644 with a party of Iroquois and killed the leader "with his bare hands."

Turn around and look at the square itself and you'll see de Maisonneuve on a pedestal and in a postcard pose while a presumably less bloody-minded Iroquois warrior crouches below him. The Iroquois is there along with other colony notables, all of whom, except Jeanne Mance, are either packing weapons or carrying ammunition.

And over at the Stock Exchange Tower is the monument to Queen Victoria, whose "little" 19th-century wars resulted in the British Empire's becoming "big."

But soon there's going to be a new name in the neighbourhood, and when it comes to 18th-century mayhem, she's got it all over a group of devout if trigger-happy 17th-century colonists.

This week at the Pointe a Calliere Museum in Place Royale, they've let it be known the life of Marie-Josephe Angelique and, more spectacularly, her death in 1734 will soon become a part of the landscape.

It's Black History Month, and in acknowledgement of that fact, the provincial government has decided to give this city a plaque acknowledging Angelique's existence. The plaque's final location has yet to be determined, but its purpose is simple enough: Angelique, a black woman born on the island of Madeira, is an emblem of the fact slavery existed here until it was abolished in 1833.

How Angelique put herself on the historical map, however, is an emblem of the fact the history of blacks in Canada has been sketchily chronicled.

We more or less know she was owned by a local merchant and that she fell in love with a white resident of the town. We also know when her master died, his widow decided to sell her off and Angelique decided to make a break for it. And it's at this point the motive for what happened next becomes less clear.

Angelique would later be accused of setting fire to her mistress's home on St. Paul St., a fire that would eventually spread to 47 other structures in the town.

Did she set the fire in a bid for freedom or in anger over the possibility of never seeing a lover?

The plaque doesn't say.

When the authorities caught up with her, they weren't happy. In an age where running someone through with cold steel was une affaire d'honneur, setting fires before the invention of the pumper truck was considered a capital crime.

In the end, the only hard-copy evidence of Marie-Josephe Angelique's life is found in the records of her death. After being tortured, Marie confessed but maintained she acted alone. She was sentenced to have her hand severed and then be burned at the stake near Place d'Youville. An appeal of that decision saw it "reduced" to hanging, then burning, then having her ashes cast to the wind.

Wherever she is today, Angelique is now officially designated as rattling good history, although one suspects given the choice, she'd have preferred to have been poor reading.

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