Revisionist and Feminist Narratives on Empire, Slavery and the Haitian Revolution

This study examines how authors responded to the Haitian Revolution with revisionist narratives that seek to support empire or rebellion, while focusing on the ethical ramifications of colonialism and slavery in the Americas. Narrative texts include Leonora Sansay’s Secret History, or the Horrors of Santo Domingo, Germaine de Stael’s Mirza, Fanny Burney’s The Wanderer, Jane Austen’s Mansfield Park and Sanditon, Harriet Martineau’s The Hour and the Man, and Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s poems, "A Curse for a Nation" and "The Runaway Slave at Pilgrim’s Point." Additional authors include Lucien Bonaparte, Chateaubriand, Raynal, Edmund Burke and Rousseau. Each author’s narrative is examined within the context of the cultural and political factors that influenced the author, as well as their personal ties to the abolitionist movement or to the institution of slavery.