Abstract
Animal historians have argued convincingly that historical meaning does not emanate from humans alone, and that animals have played critical roles in human history.¹ Yet, as anthropologist Neil Whitehead argued in an influential posthumous essay, they have sometimes struggled to “write histories which are meaningfulfrom the animal’s point of view”(emphasis in original).² This chapter uses the case study of early human–animal encounters in the Galapagos Islands to articulate how sustained engagement with zoological theory can open enhanced possibilities for identifying animals as active historical subjects by providing analytical categories that emerge directly from animal experiences, and therefore do