University/Organization
School of Performance, Visualization & Fine Arts Texas A&M University College Station
College Station, Texas
Title
Leonora Sansay’s Zelica: and Harriet Martineau’s The Man and the Hour (1841): Aaron Burr, Jesus and White Feminism in Writing about French Revolutionary Haiti
Synopsis
In her Society in America (1837), Harriet Martineau expressed the sentiments of the growing feminist abolitionist movement that championed the Black heroes of the anti-slavery movement while making analogies to white women’s lack of civic rights. In her The Man and the Hour (1841), she presents the point of view of the leader of the Haitian Revolution (1791-1804), Toussaint Louverture, as a conscientious leader seeking to free his people from white colonial oppression.