The first and last king of Haiti Marlene Daut
The royal couple of Haiti rode into their
coronation to thunderous applause.
After receiving his ornate
crown and scepter,
Henry Christophe ascended his throne,
towering 20 meters in the air.
But little did the cheering onlookers
know that the first king of Haiti
would also be its last.
Enslaved at birth on the
island of Grenada,
Christophe spent his childhood being
moved between multiple Caribbean islands.
Just 12 years old in 1779,
he accompanied his master to aid the
American revolutionaries
in the Battle of Savannah.
This prolonged siege would be Christophe’s
first encounter with violent revolution.
There are few surviving written records
about Christophe’s life immediately
after the war.
Over the next decade,
we know he worked as a mason
and a waiter at a hotel
in the French colony of Saint-Domingue,
as Haiti was then known.
In 1791, when the colony’s
slaves rose up in rebellion,
Christophe got another opportunity
to fight for freedom.
Led by Toussaint Louverture, the rebels
fought against plantation owners,
as well as British and Spanish forces
seeking control of the island.
Christophe quickly rose
through the ranks,
proving himself the equal of more
experienced generals.
By 1793,
Louverture had successfully liberated
all of Saint-Domingue’s enslaved people,
and by 1801 he’d established the
island as a semi-autonomous colony.
But during this time, Napoleon Bonaparte
had assumed power in France,
and made it his mission to restore
slavery and French authority
throughout the empire.
French attempts to reinstate slavery
met fierce resistance,
with General Christophe even
burning the capital city
to prevent military occupation.
Finally, the rebellion and an
outbreak of yellow fever
forced French soldiers to withdraw—
but the fight was not without casualties.
Louverture was captured,
and left to die in a French prison;
a fate that Christophe’s nine-year-old son
would share only a few years later.
Following the revolution,
Christophe and generals Jean-Jacques
Dessalines and Alexandre Pétion
rose to prominent positions
in the new government.
In 1804, Dessalines was proclaimed
the emperor of independent Haiti.
But his desire to hold exclusive power
alienated his supporters.
Eventually, Dessalines’ rule incited
a political conspiracy
that ended in his assassination in 1806.
The subsequent power struggle led to a
Civil War, which split the country in two.
By 1807, Christophe was governing as
president of the north in Cap-Haïtien,
and Pétion was ruling the south
from Port-au-Prince.
Pétion tried to stay true to the
revolution’s democratic roots
by modeling his republic after
the United States.
He even supported anti-colonial
revolutionaries in other nations.
These policies endeared
him to his people,
but they slowed trade and economic growth.
Christophe, conversely, had more
aggressive plans for an independent Haiti.
He redistributed land to the people, while
retaining state control of agriculture.
He also established trade with
many foreign nations,
including Great Britain and
the United States,
and pledged non-interference
with their foreign policies.
He even built a massive Citadel in case
the French tried to invade again.
To accomplish all of this, Christophe
instituted mandatory labor,
and to strengthen his authority,
he crowned himself king in 1811.
During his reign, he lived in an
elegant palace called Sans Souci
along with his wife and their
three remaining children.
Christophe’s kingdom oversaw rapid
development of trade, industry, culture,
and education.
He imported renowned European
artists to Haiti’s cultural scene,
as well as European teachers, in order
to establish public education.
But while the king was initially
popular among his subjects,
his labor mandates were an
uncomfortable reminder
of the slavery Haitians fought to destroy.
Over time, his increasingly authoritarian
policies lost support,
and his opponents to the south
gained strength.
In October 1820, his reign finally
reached its tragic conclusion.
Months after a debilitating stroke
left him unable to govern,
key members of his military
defected to southern forces.
Betrayed and despondent,
the king committed suicide.
Today, the traces of Christophe’s
complicated history
can still be found in the crumbling
remains of his palaces,
and in Haiti’s legacy as the first nation
to permanently abolish slavery.