DEFIED NAPOLEON

Evening Post, Volume CVIII, Issue 149, 20 December 1929, Page 3

DEFIED NAPOLEON

BLACK KING OF HAITI |

HIS NEGRO ARISTOCRACY; j

QUEER BIT OF HISTORTj

The Soviet plan to establish a black man's republic in South Africa doe* not sound very practical; but the TJnioa Government does well to take it seri« ously, since a revolution did once produce a negro State, with a negro king who wore a crown and gorgeous royal robes, and who was attended by a bevy; of negro duftes. There is no stranger story in history; than that of the black kingdom of Haiti, and no more romarkable potentate ever lived than King Henry Chris, tophe, who was born a slave and lived) to be called His Majesty. The career of this sable king is thai subject of a remarkable book published only a few months ago—Black Majesty, by John W. Vandereook,'says art overseas writer. Henry Christophe'a kingdom, says his biographer, during its brief span of life,\ranked in tha opinion of Europe with the most forceful of the New World Powers. "Thertf were two men of transcendent great-' ness then—Napoleon of France and the King of Haiti, Henry Christophe. the only man alive who had defeated1 him in war." ■ This black king first saw the light iA a slave compound on one of th« West Indian islands in 1767. His father and mother were African slaves owned by an English planter, and he was born into the same ownership. When twelve years old he escaped to Saint Dominique, as the island of Haiti was called when half of it constituted 1< ranee's most valuable overseas possession. A POWDER-BARREL. It was not much of an escape, fo* Henry was quickly sold into slavery! once more. His new master, Coidovie; kept the Hotel de la Couronne at Cap Francois, a town that, renamed Cap Haitien, was some day to be Kinz Henry's capital. The French colony was made up of 40,000 whites, 24,000 free mulattoes, and 500,000 slaves—" a very powderbarrel of a colony," says Hr. Vandereook, "for all its wealth and ease and surface brilliancy." Trouble began in Saint Dominique with the news of the French Bevolution, and when, in the name of fraternity, the National Assembly in Paris granted the franchise to all free French colonists, irrespective of colour, the storm burst. The white planters rebelled, and there v/as a counter-rebel-lion on. the part of the blacks. The whites called on England to help them, and the blacks deelare'l for France, and against Spain. Oat of the confusion there arose 3 negro republic, with Francois Dominique Toussaint as Governor-General—a little, ugly negro who had been a slava and a coachman, but who was something of a military genius for all that« Henry Christophe was now a general^ second only to Toussaint in rank. For a time, Napoleon was too busy: to bother about what wa3 happening ia the West Indies, but in 1802 he sent a fleet in charge of his brother-in-law^ Le Clere, to restore order in Saint Dominique. In the absence of Toussaint, Henrf, Christophe opposed the landing of the French, burned the town of Cap Francois, and retired into the hills. A good deal of fighting followed, and for a. time the French triumphed. Toussaint was placed under arrest ana sent ta France to die, and Henry Christophe was made a French general. REIGN OF TERROR. Then began a reign of terror at th# expense of the blacks. Negro prisoners were manacled together in long lines and drowned in the harbour, | 'dragging each other down to death' in a tangled human chain of screaming desperation." They were battened! down in ships' holds and suffocate* with the fumes of sulphur; they were made to dig tremendous graves, an<£. were shot from behind so that they1* pitched into the pits. \ ' The negroes rose again in rebellion* Le Clere died from yellow fever, and; the French were driven into the sea. As their new Governor-General th» blacks chose Jean Jaques Dessalines* another ex-slave, who, notwithstanding that he called himself Emperor Napoleon had just done the same—maa* a terrible mess of things, and was soon killed as the result of a mulatto plot, Henry Christophe's turn came next, A republican constitution was agreed upon, and Henry was named Presidents For the next fourteen years Haiti, no longer Saint Domininque, was ruled bjj this gigantic negro. Till the day n^ died, "no one within sight of the fira of his hypnotic eyes, or within hearing) of his imperial booming voice, eve* dared to disobey him." He must havaj been an imposing figure "in his riches* uniform of peacock blue, edged witl^ scarlet and embroidered with gold* with a huge half-moon hat trimmed witS an ostrich feather on his 4ead." \ BLACK PRINCES. It was not long before they' crowned! him king in the cathedral at Cap Haitien, in the presence of four princes* eight flukes, twenty-one counts, thirtyseven barons, and forty chevaliers—a! black aristocracy newly created by; Henry's order. There was also tha queen, Marie Louise, the daughter o^ Coidovic, the negro innkeeper, who had^ once employed the king as stable boy, Henry built himself a splendid central palace, and seven others only} slightly less gorgeous. Court functional were frequent and elaborate, and th^ nobles appeared in specially prescribed uniforms. The court officials include^ the Count of Limonade and the Dukel Marmalade, whose titles had bee* taken in all seriousness from the named given by the facetious French to im.-. portant Doniingan townships. Haiti prospered as never before o^ since. King Henry promoted trad^ with the English in sugar and coffee* and established a meat monopoly as 4 source of revenue. He encouraged th^ spread of education, listened to the ad» vice of white men who attached then* selves to Mm, and sent for white go?* ernesses for his daughters. His one folly was the building of S vast citadel, which, larger and mor«j massive than the Tower of London, stUf stands to-day, on a mountain peak be« hind Cap Haitien, the sole monument to his memory. "Its construction wa^ a task to stagger 'the ambition of "s^ Pharaoh," says Mr. Vandercook, "and| to test the utmost skill of the engiaeers of any time." The Citadel was at the end of a strenuous three hours' climb up a winding and sometimes dajta gerous trail, but Henry bnilt it witH walls 130 ft high and 30ft thick, an« armed it with 365 huge bronze cannon, A GOLD BULLET. It seems a pity that all this should have come to nothing. The King crew) tyrannical and his subjects' restlesfc and at last, when they rose again*? him, and he found himself struck dowtf by paralysis, he committed suicide i* royal fashion, by shooting himself \rittt a gold bullet.