Marlene L. Daut, The First and Last King of Haiti. The Rise and Fall of Henry Christophe

Unlike his mentor and fellow revolutionary Toussaint Louverture, King Henry Christophe has not been kindly treated by historians. Much of what was written about him in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries was the work of his enemies and detractors, who demonized him as a brutal killer and as a traitor driven by personal ambition rather than revolutionary principle. That image has proved hard to shift, and only recently have we begun to see some reappraisal of Christophe, first in Paul Crammer’s Black Crown in 2023 and now in Marlene Daut’s masterful biography of The First and Last King of Haiti. Daut makes excellent use of such archives as have survived — and it goes without saying, in such a destructive period of Haiti’s history, that these are tragically sparse — and she does well to turn to evidence provided by those of his contemporaries who were not dismissively hostile. The result is a thorough and highly readable biography that helps rehabilitate Christophe while providing us with a judicious interpretation of the chaotic period that followed Toussaint’s death. It is surely essential reading for those seeking a balanced appraisal of the early years of Haitian independence.