Knopf
Review by Brian Tanguay
The first work of theater devoted to the life of Henry Christophe was staged in 1821, only a year or so after Christophe took his own life. Since that time, as the brilliant Yale historian Marlene L. Daut notes in the Prologue to The First and Last King of Haiti, Christophe’s improbable story has intrigued artists, novelists and filmmakers across the world. Christophe’s life encompasses every ingredient an artist could ask for: triumph and tragedy, betrayal and conspiracy, benevolence and cruelty, love and hatred. Though much is known about Christophe, it’s fair to say the full arc of his life is less well understood. Good man or tyrant? Hero or villain?
“The tendency of historians, journalists, and artists alike to not just ridicule Christophe in this way,” Daut writes, “but to portray his downfall as both righteous and inevitable has obscured the intricate personal and political events that led to the king’s dramatic demise, making him one of the least understood heads of state in the history of the Americas.”
I don’t know if Professor Daut set out to write the definitive biography of Christophe, but she seems to have done so. Her exhaustive research includes a staggering number and variety of sources — letters, journals, local and foreign newspaper accounts, proclamations. It’s no wonder the book is hefty, more than five hundred pages, often dense, but the end result is simply magisterial. Detail layered upon detail, down to the furnishings in some of the places Christophe lived as he rose to prominence.
As a teenager, Christophe fought in the American Revolutionary War. He was a subordinate of Toussaint Louverture, present when Haiti defied the French Empire and declared itself independent, a military general, a savvy businessman, and a husband and father.
It’s fascinating to read Christophe’s writing and gain insight into how he thought and reasoned. Not only a prolific correspondent, but a highly literate one as well, as this example from an 1806 proclamation shows: “Light has begun to shine upon us, and a beneficent constitution is defeating the schemes and plots of which you were going to be the victims. At last, a wise code suitable to our mores, our climate, our customs, has, so to speak, come out of the chaos, to fix once again the destiny of Haiti.”
A short review like this cannot do justice to a book of this scope, but three broad themes stuck with me. The first is the brutal reality of French rule, the second the role Christophe played at key turning points, and third the long term effect of colonization on Haiti’s development as an independent nation. The French ruled through implacable racism, cruelty, and the devaluation of Black life, whether Creole, mulatto, slave or free. “Black life under French colonial rule,” Daut writes, “was so dispensable…as to make recording even the barest facts of existence — life and death — exceedingly rare.” No doubt this is the reason she so carefully substantiates where Christophe was born and into what social status.
While atrocities were committed on both sides during the long war, the French raised barbarity to another level. I was unaware, for instance, of the French practice of locking Haitians in the hold of ships and gassing them with sulphur, or the deliberate drowning of hundreds, perhaps thousands of people, leaving bodies to float in the harbor and eventually wash up on shore. A letter written by General Rochambeau to Bonaparte illustrates how the French viewed their former subjects and property. After requesting additional troops, Rochambeau makes this assertion: “Slavery must be proclaimed again in these parts, and the black code made much more severe. I even think for a time the masters must be given the right of life and death over their slaves.”
The reverberations of the successful slave rebellion struck fear in the hearts of white Europeans and American slave owners. If it could happen to the powerful French in Haiti, it could happen in another colony. The Declaration of Independence of November 29, 1803 was unprecedented: formerly enslaved Black people declared themselves independent from one of the world’s fiercest colonial powers. The French, of course, didn’t simply accept the outcome, shut up shop and leave. They saw their defeat as temporary, and had no intention of giving up or giving in. Not only was France far too invested, it was certain of its imperial right to Haiti and its bounty. With the French still wielding tremendous power, declaring independence was one matter, remaining independent and free was a very different proposition. France used every available means to sow division in the colony. Haiti, it can be said, experienced a difficult birth followed by endless growing pains.
Christophe never ruled a unified Haiti. He established himself as the king of the northern region, but in the south Alexandre Petion led the Republic of Haiti. Nevertheless, in the areas subject to his rule, Christophe established systems of public education — for boys and girls — as well as a measure of health care.“What nearly all previous chroniclers of Christophe’s vexing reign share,” Daut writes, “is failure to acknowledge that the Haitian king had created an independent and prosperous Black nation in a world hostile to the very existence of Black people.”
A known connoisseur of literature, art, music, and especially the opera, Christophe and his wife, Marie-Louise, hosted extravagant celebrations that went on for days. Christophe is known as the driving force behind the Citadel, a massive, costly, castle-fort complex often described as the Eighth Wonder of the World, the remnants of which still exist.
Very few human beings can judiciously exercise absolute power for long, and the record of cruel, avaricious, and capricious acts committed at Christophe’s direction is extensive. He alternated between poles of benign rule and tyrannical rule.
Daut devotes the Epilogue to describing the terrible bargain Haiti made with the French in exchange for full and complete independence. The French demanded an indemnity of 150 million francs, payable in five equal installments, an amount that even some wealthy European nations couldn’t have afforded. Haiti, forced to borrow from French banks, quickly and predictably defaulted. It wasn’t until 1947 that Haiti was able to retire the debt. “The independence debt and the resulting drain on the Haitian treasury,” writes Daut, “not only resulted in the underfunding of education in Haiti but also contributed to the country’s inability to develop public infrastructure.”
Henry Christophe’s motto was: “I am reborn from my ashes.” This can just as easily sum up Haiti’s history.
