Although the trade did not expand as quickly as the intendants wished, by 1736, the number of enslaved persons had risen to a level where regulation was deemed necessary: accordingly, the intendant Gilles Hocquart issued a new ordonnance establishing a uniform means of manumission (Winks, 2000, p. 6). According to Marcel Trudel, by 1759 there were at least 1,132 enslaved Africans in New France, concentrated mostly in Montreal and other towns where the majority worked as domestic servants for the merchant classes, administrative authorities, doctors, members of the military and clergy (Donovan, 1995; Riddell, 1920, 1923; Trudel, 1960; Winks, 2000, p. 9). The latter would have been among the enslavers who participated in the domestic slave trade, some of the transactions of which were evident in Actes notariés (Notarial Acts) filed in the Province of Quebec in the 1740s and 1750s (Riddell, 1923). ${ }^{3}$ Among the enslaved in New France was Marie-Joseph Angélique, who belonged to the wife of François Poulin de Francheville and was accused of setting fire to her mistress's house in April 1734, thereby destroying a significant portion of Montreal. She was tried, humiliated, tortured and executed; her corpse was then burned and, according to Afua Cooper, her ashes were flung 'to the four winds' (Cooper, 2006, p. 22; Trudel, 1960). While there is some debate about whether  
[^0]
[^0]:    3 William R. Riddell discusses the sale of 'five Negro slaves, two men and three women and girls' sold by la dame Cachelière for 3,000 livres in 1743: Robert, aged 26 to 27 years, sold by Damelle Marie-Anne Guérin for 400 livres in 1748; Louison, 'a Negro woman [...] about 17 years old', sold by Amable-JeanJoseph Came for 1,000 livres in 1749; Jean Monsaige, sold by Jacques Damien pour le servir en qualité d'esclave in 1751; Nicholas, aged about 30 years, sold by Joseph de la Tesserie in 1757; and Pierre, aged about 18 years, sold for 1,192 livres in 1757.