The great Henri Christophe

Perhaps the most fascinating of Haiti's early heroes is Henri Christophe. Born a slave on the British island of St Christopher on Oct. 6, 1767, he took his surname from the country of his birth. He ran away to sea when he was 12 years old by stowing away on a French brig. He was sold by its captain to a French naval officer to be a general handyman. Ultimately, he reached Cap Français where he was sold to the owner of the Crown Hotel. He eventually purchased his freedom, joining Toussaint in the early days of the revolt. Almost seven feet tall and possessed of great dignity, Christophe was a commanding figure and quickly achieved a conspicuous place as one of Toussaint's trusted lieutenants. Along with Dessalines he capitulated and joined the French in 1802 when so authorized by Toussaint. After Toussaint was taken prisoner and the struggle against the French resumed, Christophe again fought the French, primarily in the north.
After the French were expelled and the new republic proclaimed under Dessalines, Christophe became general-in-chief in the north. Here he undertook the construction of one of the most fabulous structures in the western hemisphere. On the top of a precipitous mountain, Bonnet-a-l'Eveque, about 20 miles southwest of Cap Haïtien, a company of stonemasons and 20,000 native peasant laborers under the direction of the Scottish engineer Ferrier, began the building of an impregnable fortress overlooking the harbor. The construction took years; it was completed only shortly before Christophe's death. The gallery, in which many of the 350 cannons were located, had been brought to the fort by superhuman effort and at the cost of many lives.
During his reign in the north after he succeeded Dessalines in 1806, Christophe had other fabulous structures built. After having himself proclaimed king on June 12, 1811, he built the Palace of Sans-Souci at Milot. This palace was built on a scale of grandeur that has seldom been equaled. The great halls of state were cooled by a mountain stream conducted under their floors. There were banquet halls, an audience chamber, an arsenal, a presbytery, barracks and even a chapel.
As king, Henri ruled with an iron hand. Obsessed with a fear that Napoleon's forces would return, he drove his people to finish his fortress and exacted the most trying labors, often enforced with great cruelty. Ultimately his subjects began to revolt. Christophe's health and mind simultaneously began to give way; he became partially paralyzed. As tradition has it, he loaded a pistol with a silver bullet and took his own life on Oct. 8, 1820. Thus perished the last of Haiti's four major heroes (Toussaint, Dessalines, Pétion and Christophe), three of whom became chiefs of state after the revolution that won Haiti its freedom from France. Their intriguing stories and those of other heroes together constitute amazing panoply of tales of black and mulatto heroes who brought a new nation into being.