Kingdom of Haiti

From 1791 to 1804, the Haitian revolution against the French colonists raged. After the failure of the French expedition of 1803, General Jean-Jacques Dessalines proclaimed Haiti's independence.

On October 8, 1804, Dessalines was crowned emperor in Cap-Haïtien under the name of Jacques I.

But very soon, some generals, ambitious to seize power, organized a plot against the emperor, who was finally assassinated by the men of General Alexandre Pétion in an ambush on October 17, 1806, at Pont-Rouge (at the entrance of Port-au-Prince), betrayed by one of his battalion chiefs.

Afterwards, his generals marched on the capital, abolished the Empire and expelled the imperial family, which had to go into exile. Alexandre Pétion proclaimed the Republic and became president. But another general, Henri Christophe, broke away and took control of northern Haiti, where he established a separatist government, the State of the North.

President of the Republic of the North, then president for life and generalissimo, Henri Christophe wants to legitimize his power as Dessalines had done by re-establishing the empire. In conflict with the southern republic of Pétion, he succeeds, after several battles, in securing the borders of his new state. Once some stability was established, Christophe established a constitutional monarchy with himself as monarch. He became king of Haiti on March 28, 1811, under the name of Henry I. On June 2, 1811, he was crowned by Grand Archbishop Jean-Baptiste-Joseph Brelle.

Since Haiti was divided in 1807, tensions arose between the Haitians of the north and the south. This led to a veritable civil war. The tension with the southerners was further intensified with the establishment of the kingdom of the North. Alexandre Pétion, as president of the Republic of the South, declared to represent the struggle against tyranny, which would be represented by King Henri. From 1807 to 1820, neither of the two armies managed to cross the border between the two nations.

As for King Henri, he denigrates Pétion by declaring that he embodies the false democracy that masks tyranny, a declaration that is confirmed when Pétion proclaims himself president for life of the South with the right to designate his successor.

In 1818, after Pétion's death, it was his aide-de-camp Jean-Pierre Boyer who succeeded him at the head of the South. King Henri then proposed to Boyer to join him in exchange for the title of marshal. But, as expected, he refused. He even sent several spies to different cities in the North to stir up the population. At first, this attempt seemed to have no effect on the northern population. But after a last battle fought on the north-south border, in which the king ordered to shoot all the southern officers who were prisoners, republican ideas circulated more and more in the kingdom. Boyer then sent several great orators from the South to the North with the aim of creating a revolutionary movement. Moreover, in 1820, the harvests were bad and taxes were increasing, a situation favorable to revolutions.

During the summer of 1820, several riots broke out in the North, and the government then launched a violent repression. As for the king, he suffered a stroke in August 1820, which left him partially paralyzed and considerably weakened his health and disturbed his thinking. In September 1820, a new insurrection broke out in Cap-Haïtien, provoking an almost general revolt in the country. The revolution quickly broke out in the North, the richest city of the kingdom, Cap Haitien, fell under revolutionary control. In October, the revolutionaries marched on Milot's Sans Souci palace. Suffering from his paralysis and seeing that the situation was slipping away from him, the king committed suicide on October 8, 1820 by shooting himself in the heart with a silver bullet during a mass in a church he had built. He is buried in the citadel of La Ferrière. After his death, his son, Crown Prince Victor-Henry, was proclaimed king by his followers under the name of Henry II. But Milot was seized by the insurgents and the new king was hanged on October 18, 1820. Queen Marie-Louise Coidavid and her daughters went into exile in Italy. Boyer takes advantage of the revolution to send his army, present on the border, to the center of the northern kingdom. On October 20, Boyer imposes himself by arms and proclaims the accession of the north to the south the following October 26. Finally, he proclaimed himself president for life and then "supreme chief" of the whole island.

Sans-Souci Chapel

After the episode of the reign of Henri Christophe, no other true monarchy arose in Haiti until the ten year Second Empire of Faustin I. But there have been attempts to re-establish the monarchy like that of Pierre Nord Alexis, grandson of the former King Henri, who took power in 1902. Authoritarian, he multiplied his proclamations by becoming president for life and even ended up proposing a new constitutional monarchy with him as king. But this project provoked a last revolt that turned into a new revolution and forced Nord Alexis to go into exile in 1908. He died two years later, in 1910, at the age of 89.

In 1811, the North became a constitutional and hereditary monarchy. It was there that it entered into war with the South even though the fighting did not go beyond the borders.

In the beginning, Henri was not a popular monarch, he was seen as an ambitious soldier who had become a dictator. Moreover, in January 1812, he had to face a revolt by liberal groups demanding the establishment of a parliament and a fairer constitution.

To put an end to his troubles, the king establishes the "Code Henri" which is composed of a set of laws and promotes education. The Henri Code thus establishes a so-called royal constitution which appeases the opponents of the monarchy. In addition, the king sets up a cabinet composed of various ministers to help him administer the kingdom. Stability then returns in the North and Henri is recognized king by the northern population.

According to the "Henri Code", the king holds the bulk of power. However, he is assisted by a cabinet of ministers represented by a chancellor appointed by the king. When he becomes king, Henry appoints Joseph Rouanez as chancellor, to whom he also grants the title of Duke de Morin. But Rouanez died in 1812, and was replaced by Julien Prévost, who served as chancellor until the fall of the regime. The government was thus composed of six ministers, including the chancellor. The power of the king remains however much higher than that of the chancellor, the monarch is thus the true head of the government, the chancellor being only his personal adviser.

By an edict dated April 5, 1811, King Henry proclaims a noble class whose titles, ecu and currencies are intended to be transmitted hereditarily. This nobility system was largely inspired by British institutions, but it shows some French influence because, like Napoleon's nobility, for example, it did not include marquis or viscount. The titles conferred correspond for the most part to majorates, in this case vast territories.

Citadelle Laferrière.

The king used the "agrarian caporalism" that he promoted to develop the island's economy. As a result, the North is getting richer faster than the South. He built the Sans Souci palace in Milot and the Belle-Rivière palace in Petite Rivière de l'Artibonite and created a nobility distributing titles, pensions and decorations.

Work on the Sans Souci palace was completed in 1813. In addition to the main body, a chapel with a large cupola was also built, as well as numerous annexes: barracks, hospital, ministries, printing shop, mint, school, art academy, farm, etc. King Henri, his wife Queen Marie-Louise and their children - including Victor-Henry Christophe - lived in the palace, along with their staff and the various councillors and ministers, until October 18, 1820, when the northern monarchy came to an end.

The king owned nineteen other plantations and had other residences and forts built throughout his kingdom, including the La Ferrière citadel, located a few kilometers from the palace, and armed with 200 cannons. The geographical location of this royal residence and the citadel can be explained on a strategic level: it is both central and elevated, concealed and perfectly autonomous. It allows the sovereign to control his territory and to protect himself from his internal and external enemies, including the French, who will not cease to want to retake their former colony as evidenced by the attempted landing of 1814-1815, ordered by King Louis XVIII.