Leonora Sansay's Secret History of Land Crabs

Abstract

Using an unusual scene of a land crab invasion as a focal point, this essay traces the symbolic significance of this crustacean in eighteenth-century natural history writing to illustrate how Leonora Sansay's Secret History; or, The Horrors of St. Domingo (1808) incorporated scientific modes of description to both express and diffuse American concerns over the Haitian Revolution. Through an emblematic reading of these creatures, it becomes apparent how Sansay drew on the land crab's symbolic significance, which developed as natural historians turned to these animals as a means to express concerns surrounding slavery, specifically the dangers posed by the enslaved to European colonization. From this perspective, the land crab invasion in Secret History becomes an instance in which Sansay both represents the dangers posed by the Haitian Revolution and draws on scientific modes of description to diffuse said concerns. This analysis of Secret History advances the case for the importance of considering the role of natural history in early American literature to understand the political commentaries found in the era's works of fiction.