Henry Christophe, l’Architecte du Royaume

Henry Christophe, Le Bâtisseur du Royaume d’Haïti

Haiti’s Kingdom Builder

 

 

Maryse Noël Roumain

 

 

 

 

All Rights Reserved

 

 

 

 

« J’apprendrai l’orgueil à mon peuple dussé-je pour cela lui briser les reins de travail. »

(Henry Christophe, King Henry I)

 

 

 

 

 

 

Henry Christophe qui fut le chef de la partie nord de l’île d’Haïti de 1806 à 1820, est connu pour avoir bâti de nombreux palais, châteaux, forts, édifices et spécialement la forteresse gigantesque La Citadelle Laferrière au haut d’une montagne. J’aime me référer à lui comme l’architecte du royaume.

Plusieurs dizaines de milliers d’hommes ont travaillé durant près de dix années à mettre en place les énormes blocs de la Citadelle Laférrière cimentés avec un mélange de chaux. Cette gigantesque fortification avait été construite sur ordre du roi Henry Christophe et sous sa direction pour repousser toute tentative éventuelle d’invasion d’Haïti par l’armée française qui voulait ré-établir l’esclavage sur l’île d’Haïti sur ordre de Napoléon Bonaparte, le Consul Français.

Construite sur le sommet du morne Bonnet à l’Evêque, à 1000 mètres d’altitude, on dirait entre ciel et terre, la Citadelle est munie de 200 canons pointés vers les quatre points cardinaux, d’un dédale d’escaliers, de cours, de cuisines, de salles de garde, de six étages et de réservoirs pour recueillir l’eau de pluie. Elle est capable d’héberger plus d’un millier de soldats.

Henri Christophe avait transféré son royaume à l’intérieur des terres, loin des côtes haïtiennes, à Milot où se trouvait le Palais Sans-Souci qu’il avait fait construire sur le modèle du Palais de Versailles en France. En plus de cette résidence, il avait fait bâtir un hôpital, une imprimerie, une académie d’art, une caserne et d’autres bâtiments. Les ruines du Palais Sans-Souci qui a été presque rasé par un tremblement de terre en 1843 existent encore. Dans ce palais se tenaient des fêtes qui duraient des jours et où toute la cour était présente.

L’ancien esclave devenu Président, puis Roi, après la mort de Dessalines était un « visionnaire bâtisseur » qui voulait construire son pays, Haïti, et y établir un mode de vie à l’image de celui des anciens colons qui venaient d’être vaincus. Il disait : « j’apprendrai l’orgueil à mon peuple dussé-je pour cela lui briser les reins de travail. »

He was born Henry Christophe in 1767 on the island of Grenada located northwest of Trinidad and Tobago in the Caribbean Sea. The son of a slave mother and of Christophe, a free man or affranchi, he was born as a slave to the northern part of Saint Domingue.  It is written that in 1779, he joined the French forces who participated in the American Revolution and who fought the Siege of Savannah, helping the Americans against the British.

Il est né en

As an adult, Christophe became manager of a hotel in Cap Français, the French colony’s capital now Cap Haïtien. He gained his freedom from slavery before the 1791 slaves’ rebellion in the north. He joined the Haitian rebellion then the Haitian revolution under Toussaint Louverture and he became General in the French Army of Saint Domingue by 1802.

After Dessalines’ death, following the power struggle with the southern mulattoes led by Alexandre Pétion and Jean-Pierre Boyer, Henry Christophe retreated in the northern plains and created a separate government declaring himself “President and Generalissimo of the armies of land and sea of the State of Haiti”.

In 1811, he declared the northern part of Haiti a kingdom and was crowned by the archbishop of Milot becoming “the First Monarch of the New World, Defender of the Faith, Founder of the Royal Military Order of Saint Henry.”

King Henry I created a nobility consisting of four Princes, eight Dukes, twenty-two Counts, forty Barons and fourteen Knights. He gave his first son the title of Royal Prince of Haiti and made him his heir, his two daughters were Princesses and his second son was a colonel in his army.

Henry Christophe or King Henry I welcomed the English to help administer the kingdom. During the 13 years of his rule, agriculture and commerce prospered and the treasury was full.  He contributed a competent administration and adopted a body of laws called Code Henry. He created a school system, building schools and importing teachers, and supported the arts.

Christophe’s aim was to increase agricultural production to recover from the expensive and damaging wars. He had to choose whether to enforce a version of the slave plantation system like Toussaint or Dessalines or to subdivide the land into parcels for peasants’ subsistence farming. The latter was the policy of President Pétion in the South. King Henry chose to enforce plantation work, distributing large portions of land to his military officers, thus instituting a feudal society. During his reign, the sugar cane economy generated revenue for government and officials.

He adopted a system of forced labor known as corvée or unpaid labor in lieu of taxes. On the plantations, the monarch enforced a drastic labor code: all able-bodied men had to work from sunrise to sunset, with an hour off for breakfast and two hours off at midday.

King Henry preferred trading with English and American merchants rather than the French and Spanish.  Because of increased bilateral trade with Britain, Christophe’s government earned an enormous sum of British pounds for his treasury. By contrast, Petion’s Southern Haiti became much poorer because the land-share system reduced agricultural productivity, and exports fell.

In 1820, King Henry I was 53 years old. He had built a lot of edifices, has restored the economy of the north but he was an absolute monarch, having made accomplishments thanks to his subjects’ forced labor, the creation of a nobility that enjoyed privileges and the distribution of property to his military and noble men.  There was unhappiness in the kingdom.

On October 8, 1820, he was attending mass at the Church of Limonade (in Milot) when he suffered a massive heart attack.  He became ill, paralyzed and unable to lead his people.  That was the end.  He was buried at the Citadelle La Ferrière, the fortification he built to prevent a return of the French army.

Following his death, the crown prince was himself killed but the King’s entourage permitted his widow and daughters to stay at the Sans-Souci Palace.

Henry Christophe’s wife Marie-Louise Coidavid was born of black but free parents: her father was the owner of a hotel, Hotel de la Couronne. She married Henri Christophe in Cap-Français in 1793. They had four children: François Ferdinand, Françoise-Améthyste, Athénaïs and Victor-Henri.

In 1811, Marie-Louise was given the title of queen upon the creation of the Kingdom of Haiti. Her new status gave her ceremonial tasks to perform, ladies-in-waiting, a secretary and her own court. She was an active queen. She took her position seriously, and stated that the title “given to her by the nation” also gave her responsibilities and duties. She served as the hostess of the ceremonial royal court at the Sans-Souci Palace.

Marie-Louise and her daughters were given the property Lambert outside of Cap Henry. She was visited by President Jean-Pierre Boyer, who offered her his protection; they were allowed to settle in Port-au-Prince. Le trésor royal de Christophe était estimé à vingt millions de dollars.

 

In August 1821, the former queen left Haiti with her daughters under the protection of a British admiral, and travelled to London. There were rumors that she was searching for the money, three million, deposited by her spouse in Europe. Whatever the case, she did live the rest of her life without economic difficulties.

Elle mourrut en 1851 dans sa résidence italienne.

La reine fut enterrée dans la petite chapelle du couvent des Capucins de Pise où, aujourd’hui encore, elle repose à coté de ses deux filles, les princesses Améthyste et Athénaïs.