Henri Christophe was a full-blooded negro who passed the early days of his life as the slave of a French planter. When the blacks rose against their masters he led the revolt on his own plantation and quickly avenged his years of bondage. Serving first as a common soldier under Toussaint l’Ouverture, he rose to the rank of general and became one of the chief supporters of Dessalines. The assassination of the latter in 1806 left Christophe commander-in-chief of the Haitian forces and led to his election as the first President of Haiti. His first official act was to protest against the newly adopted constitution on the ground that it did not give him sufficient power. Civil war broke out between him and the mulatto general Pétion, who drove him into the north and became president in his place, leaving Christophe the official ranking of an outlaw. Pétion, however, was never able to conquer his rival. Proclaiming himself president under a new constitution drawn up by an assembly of his own choosing, the rebel took possession of the northern half of the country and ruled it for thirteen long years with one of the bloodiest hands known to history.
In 1811 he proclaimed himself king, honored his black consort with the title of queen, and proceeded to form a Haitian nobility consisting of his own numerous children as “princes of the royal blood,” three “princes of the kingdom,” eight “dukes,” twenty “counts,” thirty-seven “barons,” and eleven “chevaliers,” each and all of them former slaves or the descendants of slaves. These jet-black “nobles,” many of whom added to their titles the names of such native towns as Limonade, Marmalade, and the like, soon became the laughing-stock of more advanced civilizations, though candor forces the admission that Christophe was only following the example of those who ennobled the robber barons of Europe in earlier centuries, with the slight difference in the matter of complexions. As “King Henry” he surrounded himself with all the pomp and ceremony of royalty, erected nine palaces, of which Sans Souci was the most magnificent and the only one that has not completely disappeared, built eight royal châteaux, maintained great stables of horses and royal coaches, innumerable retainers and servants, and a tremendous bodyguard. Later, feeling that he had not done himself full honor, he named himself hereditary emperor under the title of “Henri I,” and having come within an ace of conquering the entire country, settled down to govern his portion of it in a manner that would have been the envy of Nero.
The name of Christophe, in so far as it is known at all, is synonymous with unbridled brutality. Yet there is a certain violent virtue in the efforts by which the ex-slave sought to force his unprogressive black subjects to climb the slippery ladder of civilization. He founded schools, distributed the estates of the exiled Frenchmen among the veterans of his army, reëstablished commercial relations with England and the United States, created workshops in which the word “can’t” was taboo. His methods were simple and direct. Causing a French carriage to be placed at the disposition of his workmen, he ordered them to produce another exactly like it within a fortnight on pain of death. Similar tasks were meted out in all lines of endeavor, the tyrant refusing to admit that what white men could do his black subjects could not do also. His despotism, however, was not bounded by the mere desire for advancement. When he passed, the people were compelled to kneel, and death was the portion of the man who dared look upon his face without permission. Thievery he abhorred, and inflicted capital punishment for the mere stealing of a chicken. It came to be a regular part of his daily life to order men, women, and even children thrown from the summit of the citadel.
Tradition asserts that thirty thousand of his black subjects perished in the building of this chief monument to his ambition. All the French and Belgian architects and the skilled mechanics who worked on it are said to have been assassinated when it was finished. The tale is still going the rounds in Haiti that the emperor once came upon a gang of workmen idling about one of the massive blocks of stone destined for the citadel above, and demanded the reason for their inaction.
“It is too heavy, Sire,” replied the workmen; “we cannot carry it to the mountain-top.”
“Line up,” ordered the tyrant; then turning to his bodyguard, he commanded, “Shoot every fourth man. Perhaps you will feel stronger now,” he remarked to the survivors as he rode onward.
On his return, however, the stone was no higher up the hill.
“It is quite impossible, your Majesty,” gasped the foreman; “it will not budge.”
“Throw that man from the precipice,” said the despot, “and repeat the order of this morning.”
The remaining workmen, according to the tale, succeeded in carrying the stone to its destination.