King Henry I of Haiti

Born in Grenada and brought to Haiti as a slave, Henri Christophe (06 October 1767–08 October 1820) joined the 1791 slave uprising, rising through the revolutionary ranks, and becoming a protagonist of the war that culminated in Haiti's independence from France. The year 1804 saw the birth of the New World’s second independent nation, and the first engendered by a war of emancipation from slavery. Christophe then participated in the 1805 invasion of Santo Domingo, notorious for its civilian massacres. When Jacques I was assassinated in 1806, the First Empire of Haiti was dissolved, and Christophe took control of the Northern part of Haiti, becoming its President a year later.

In 1811 he proclaimed himself King Henry I, becoming Haiti’s first King. The Kingdom of Haiti was the second monarchical polity established in that nation, succeeding the short-lived Empire of Jacques I (born Dessalines) and preceding that of Emperor Faustin I (Soulouque). 

Henry I was an Anglophile and an admirer of King George II of England, upon whom he modeled key aspects of his monarchy. He created chivalric orders and a titled hereditary nobility, and founded a College of Arms to design and regulate armorial bearings. Although of English inspiration, his peerage — like Napoleon’s nobility — lacked marquessates and viscountcies. Crucially, land was allocated along with the titles, and the nobles were responsible for establishing plantations and managing their laborers. 

The King constructed many palaces, including the opulent Sans-Souci Palace (his principal residence) with its Royal Chapel of Milot, and the massive Citadelle Henry, the largest fortress in the Americas; the last three are now World Heritage Sites. He modernized the civil service and the military and founded a navy. An enlightened monarch, he also founded several learned societies and a public education system, and greatly enriched Haiti's cultural life.

Unfortunately, the northern Kingdom was perpetually at war with the southern Republic of Alexandre Pétion. At the same time, a transversal racial divide was ever-present, with Henry I representing the Black majority and Pétion the mixed-race elite. Compounding such destabilizing forces was King Henry's policy of forced agricultural labor, which made him deeply unpopular. Faced with armed insurrections, debilitating strokes, and an imminent invasion from the south, King Henry shot himself in 1820. In the ensuing chaos, his teenage son — the unproclaimed new king — was assassinated whilst the Queen and the two princesses fled into exile. The dictatorial Jean-Pierre Boyer conquered the north, abolished the monarchy, and consolidated the two states into a new Republic.