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Part of
A Comparative Literary History of Modern Slavery: The Atlantic world and beyond
Edited by Madeleine Dobie, Mads Anders Baggesgaard and Karen-Margrethe Simonsen
[Comparative History of Literatures in European Languages XXXVI] 2024
► pp. 80–96

Chapter 4
In search of home

Fear and the dream of belonging in Leonora Sansay’s Secret History; or, the Horrors of St. Domingo (1808)

Secret History tells the story of two sisters, Mary and Clara, who have joined Clara’s husband as he attempts to regain his lost colonial possessions in the final period of the Haitian Revolution. In contrast to the frights she experiences in war-ridden Saint-Domingue, Mary dreams longingly of a stable home. This chapter analyzes the novel’s dichotomy of horrifying fear and happy dreams on the level of figurative language, composition, and literary geography. It argues that Secret History engages with the specific challenge of forging a North-American cultural identity. The chapter also explores Sansay’s use of the sentimental mode, showing that it is used to interrogate the humanity of friends and foes, enslaved and free.
Keywords: Leonora Sansay, Haitian Revolution, early American history, structures of feeling, belonging, horror, sentimentality
Article outline
  • I.What authors wrote about when they wrote about Haiti
  • II.Sentimental communities, personal and political
  • III.Frenchmen, the enslaved and the limits of community
  • Conclusion: Haiti, the United States, and … Ireland
  • Author queries
  • Notes
  • References
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References (30)
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