Product reviewsBlack Crown 9781787387799 Paul Clammer - Tracked Delivery

A Fascinating and Regretted Monarch

This is the biography of a remarkable man, King Henry Christophe of Haiti. It is not the first biography of Christophe in English: Hubert Cole's 1967 biography is also very good ('Christophe, King of Haiti'). One of the leaders, with Toussaint l'Ouverture and Jean-Jacques Dessalines, of the Haitian Revolution, which was sparked by the French Revolution, Christophe was the most level-headed and well-organised. Toussaint died in prison, having been put there by Napoleon; Dessalines was killed by his own supporters after he had declared himself Emperor Jacques I and proved to be a bloodthirsty tyrant. Christophe, who apparently modelled himself on King George III, began an ambitious programme of public works and economic improvement. Everyone, including members of Haiti's nobility, was expected to take part in the construction and improvement work. Not everyone was enthused by the idea. Christophe never managed to extend his rule over the whole of Haiti. The South, centred on Port-au-Prince, had declared itself a republic under the leadership of Alexandre Petion, who was a mulatto. His regime was perceived as much less onerous than Christophe's. They went to war. Eventually, facing defeat, Christophe shot himself; the great works ceased abruptly and Haiti relapsed into a kind of 'expatriate African' poverty and torpor. It is today one of the poorest countries on earth, suffering overpopulation, environmental degradation, bad government. Yet in colonial times, the former Colony of St-Domingue had been one of the richest French possessions; 'the Pearl of the Antilles'. Had the dynamic Christophe survived, it might have enjoyed prosperity. There is a wealth of intriguing detail. I learned for example that 'Haiti' is a Native American word meaning 'Land of Mountains'. (Few Native Americans remained by Christophe's time, but they DNA may still be present.) There are some intersting observations on the much-misunderstood Voodoo cult. Read full review...

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