Twenty-first International Conference on New Directions in the Humanities

Abstract

American author, Leonora Sansay, published her novel, Zelica, in London in 1820. It is a revised and expanded version of her novel, Secret History, or The Horrors of Santo Domingo, in a series of letters, written by a lady at Cape Francois, to Colonel Burr, late vice-president of the United States, principally during the command of General Rochambeau (Philadelphia,1808). Sansay’s novel places her heroine among the key figures of the revolution, including Leclerc, Napoleon’s sister, Pauline, Toussaint, Christophe and Rochambeau. These male characters who determine the fate of the island in the outcome of the revolution also interact with Sansay’s female character on an intimate level. The placement of her female characters within the political dynamics of revolution yields a distinctly American version of the Haitian Revolution as one that threatened whites with retaliation by both slaves and people of color. Sansay’s character is based on her own experiences as the wife of an American planter who returned to Haiti in 1802 when the French led by General Leclerc on Napoleon’s orders sought to reimpose French rule. In her adulation of the hero of the Haitian Revolution, Toussaint Louverture, who paved the way for Haitian independence from French colonialism, Harriet Martineau’s The Man and Hour (1839) offers a stark contrast to Sansay’s portrayal of the Haitian Revolution (1791-1804) which was led by Toussaint Louverture and ended with his control of the island as governor for life in 1801. Following his capture by the French, Louverture died in prison in 1803.