Recalling the life of Henry Christophe, Haiti’s first and last king

A large monument in a central square in Savannah, Georgia honors the Chasseurs-Volontaires of Saint-Domingue, a regiment of free men of African descent from what is now Haiti, who fought there for American independence in 1779. 

Standing alongside the armed soldiers depicted in the monument is a young drummer boy. He is Henry Christophe, then a boy of 12, and the future king of Haiti. 

Born in 1767 in the British colony of Grenada, Christophe emerged from an enslaved childhood to become a freedom fighter in the Haitian Revolution. He was eventually crowned Haiti’s first and only king in 1811, ruling over the northern region of the island. Yale’s Marlene Daut explores his life and legacy in her new book, “The First and Last King of Haiti: The Rise and Fall of Henry Christophe” (Alfred A. Knopf). 

Daut, a professor of French and African Diaspora studies in Yale’s Faculty of Arts and Sciences, said she wanted to tell the story of how Haiti went from enslaved colony to free Black nation as seen through the eyes of Christophe, who was on the front lines. 

“While the contemporary media often portray today’s Haiti as a land of perpetrators and victims ever in need of foreign occupation,” Daut writes, “the story of King Henry reveals a proud, determined and self-sufficient country whose culture was admired around the world, but one at the same time whose freedom many nations sought to strangle.” 

Daut’s previous book, “Awakening the Ashes: An Intellectual History of the Haitian Revolution,” was a co-winner of the 2024 Frederick Douglas Book Prize. 

Daut sat down with Yale News to talk about Christophe’s rise through the French military, his subsequent standoff against Napoléon Bonaparte, and the complicated legacy of his nine-year reign as king. The conversation has been condensed and edited. 

It no doubt comes as a surprise to many people that Haiti once had a king. But you open your book by pointing out that in the early 20th century, he was a well-known figure. 

Marlene Daut: Yes, most of the time when I tell people that I’ve just written a book about the king of Haiti, their minds are a bit blown. It’s interesting, though, because that wouldn’t necessarily have always been the case. I open the book with Orson Welles — his first major production was an all-Black production of “Macbeth” in 1936. It was nicknamed “Voodoo Macbeth” because Welles told a New York Times reporter that he was inspired by the life of the king of Haiti. And then I take readers through a lot of the writers who were fascinated with his tale, including the Nobel Prize-winning author Derek Walcott, whose first play was called “Henry Christophe.” Aimé Césaire had a very famous play about Christophe as well, “The Tragedy of King Christophe.” I also talk about the Mexican comic book from the early 1980s that illustrated the king’s story, called “Fuego: Majestad negra,” which circulated all over Latin America and in the United States. 

So his story had this long tail, and then it just kind of precipitously dropped off. 

One of the most fascinating things about Christophe’s early life is that he left Grenada at the age of 12 to fight in the American Revolution in the Battle of Savannah. What is your theory as to how that came about? 

Daut: In the book I talk about several different ways this could have occurred, but this is the most likely: Grenada was in British hands at the time of Christophe’s birth in 1767. Just before the Battle of Savannah, which was in 1779, the French attacked the island during what is called the Siege of Grenada. This was led by a French general and vice-admiral named [Jean Baptiste Charles Henri Hector, comte] d’Estaing, and he succeeded in recapturing the island for France. He took captives — enslaved Africans and other prisoners — and from there he went to Saint-Domingue, which later became Haiti but at the time was a French colony. There, D’Estaing gathered more troops who were free men of color and took them with him to the battlefields of North America, where he had been called to help aid the French army fighting with the American patriots. This was the most likely route that Christophe took. Maybe he thought he could escape from slavery by stowing away on this ship, or maybe he was captured. But he went to the battlefield in Savannah at the age of 12, which is stunning and tragic at the same time. 

After the Battle of Savannah, Christophe traveled to Saint-Domingue, a French colony that was producing sugar, coffee, and indigo through the labor of enslaved persons. In 1791, a revolution erupted — the enslaved people set plantations on fire and refused to work. It wasn’t until 1793 that France finally granted emancipation. But when Napoléon Bonaparte came to power in 1799, he sought to reinstate slavery in Haiti. What role did Christophe play in preventing that from happening?

Daut: Between 1793 and 1802, the colony was free of slavery, but it was still French. You had all these formerly enslaved individuals, free Black men and women, rising to positions of prominence as owners of plantations that were run by free labor, and the men often held high-ranking positions in the military. Christophe became a brigadier general. Toussaint Louverture became governor general. Haiti’s eventual founder, Jean-Jacques Dessalines, was a division general. They were free French Black generals in this colony. 

But when Napoléon came to power, he couldn’t believe that this had happened. He completely disagreed with emancipation and remained pro-slavery. So he sent his brother-in-law, General [Charles] Leclerc, to Saint-Domingue with around 30,000 troops to reinstate slavery, arrest Toussaint, and turn the other Black generals and officers against one another. Christophe had this major moment when he opposed Leclerc’s attempted entrance by sea into Cap-Français. He issued his famous phrase: “If you persist in these threats, you will only enter this city once it has been reduced to ashes. And even on those ashes I will fight you.” When Leclerc persisted, Christophe indeed had the city burned. It was a remarkable stand against the invasion. 

Jumping ahead, there was a lot of fierce fighting over the next few years, but Haiti was finally able to declare independence. Then there was a lengthy civil war. Christophe was eventually named king in 1811. How did a monarchy emerge from all this tumult? 

Daut: Haiti first declared independence on January 1, 1804. Dessalines, who’s considered the founder, first took the title of governor general. But by the end of the year, he was using the title emperor, as he had proclaimed Haiti to be an empire. So, almost from the start, they had this idea of monarchy. 

But Dessalines was assassinated in October 1806. The conspirators behind it were in the southern part of the island, in Port-au-Prince. At first, they named Christophe interim president and said they wanted to create a republic. But Christophe was wary of this — if they could get rid of Dessalines, what might they do to him?  So he went to the north, where he was from, and set up a separate state. He took the very modest title of “President and Generalissimo of the Forces of the Earth and Seas of the State of Hayti,” and reigned under this title from 1807 to June 1811. In March 1811, however, he declared his intention to become king of the northern state of Haiti, and he was crowned on June 2, 1811. Christophe’s council of state, which originally proposed to Christophe that he become king, explained the reasons for this to the Haitian people. They said republics weren’t the best places for freedom. Their two examples were the United States, which still had slavery, didn’t recognize Haitian independence, and had previously instituted a trade embargo against them; and France, where Napoléon had brought back slavery on the island of Guadeloupe and maintained slavery on the island of Martinique. So, in their minds, this experiment of republics in the New World was not really going to produce freedom for Black people in the Americas.

Christophe oversaw construction of the Citadelle Henry, which still stands today and is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Why was this structure so remarkable? 

Daut: In the book I say, it’s vast like a city. It had a separate palace for the king so he could live there with his family. It had its own printing press. It had 500 cannons, and all these bullets and ammunition. It had a hospital, a pharmacy. It had a prison. It’s very hard to get up there because it’s on one of the highest mountain peaks in Haiti. On a clear day you can see all the way out to the ocean, and that was the point — to be able to spot invaders. 

Christophe ended up taking his own life in 1820, following a debilitating stroke and betrayals by his military and confidantes. But the book does not end there. Why? 

Daut: I wanted to tell the story of what happened to his wife, Marie-Louise, and children, which is very tragic. His son, the heir to the throne, was executed 10 days after Christophe took his own life. His son from a previous relationship was also executed. Those nobles who were loyal to him were executed. His wife and daughters were spared, and decided to go to England, where they initially stayed with Thomas Clarkson, the famous British abolitionist who was a frequent correspondent with and supporter of Christophe. But they found life in England hard — the weather, the stares, people making fun of them, reporting on their every movement. So they decided to go to Italy, and then more tragedy struck. One of the queen’s daughters died, and then the second died not long after. The queen was in such sorrow, and she pleaded with Haiti’s president to be allowed to come home. He said no. The calamities just kept following her after her husband’s death.

And there was also a calamity for the country — the indemnity. 

Daut: The epilogue is called “The Greatest Heist in History.” If I had to point to Christophe’s greatest legacy, it was being completely devoted to Haitian sovereignty and saying “no” to the various actors in England and France who tried to convince him that Haiti should pay France an indemnity [payments in exchange for recognizing Haiti’s independence]. But when Christophe died, it opened the door for the indemnity because his successor, Jean-Pierre Boyer, did not share that stance. In 1825, Boyer signed a disastrous indemnity agreement, which committed Haiti to paying 150 million francs as the price of France’s recognition. One part of that tragedy is that France forced Haiti to indebt itself decade over decade over decade throughout the entire 19th century. The other part is what the Haitian people had to suffer through as the ones who had to live with it. The president was overthrown in 1843, and it was the Haitian people who had to continue to pay. 

How is Christophe thought of in Haiti today? 

Daut: Well, one could say that in the north of Haiti, he’s beloved, and in the south, he’s not. People in Haiti will say he’s not universally loved in the north though, which is true. He’s responsible for the Citadelle Henry and Sans-Souci palace, both of which are now UNESCO World Heritage Sites. But at the same time, contemporary Haitians know and understand that life under Christophe was difficult. The form of labor used to build the Citadelle was labor in lieu of taxes — if you didn’t have money to pay your taxes you got sent up to work. Christophe could also be exacting if you were accused of a crime. This was a highly militarized state. He had an 1812 book of laws called the Code Henry that regulated every part of life. And if you violated these laws, you got sent to jail or to do hard labor. These weren’t things that were out of step with punishments elsewhere in the world at the time, but it is still hard to come to terms with. And humanity and justice call for us today to acknowledge rather than make excuses for Christophe’s contradictions.