The essential biography of the controversial rebel, traitor, and only king of Haiti. Henry Christophe is one of the most richly complex figures in the history of the Americas, and was, in his time, popular and famous the world over: in The First and Last King of Haiti, a brilliant, award-winning Yale scholar unravels the still controversial enigma that he was.

Slave, revolutionary, traitor, king, and suicide, Henry Christophe was, in his time, popular and famous the world over. Born in 1767 to an enslaved mother on the Caribbean island of Grenada, Christophe first fought to overthrow the British in North America, before helping his fellow enslaved Africans in Saint-Domingue, as Haiti was then called, to gain their freedom from France. Yet in an incredible twist of fate, Christophe ended up fighting with Napoleon's forces against the very enslaved men and women he had once fought alongside. Later, reuniting with those he had betrayed, he offered to lead them and made himself their king. But it all came to a sudden and tragic end when Christophe--after nine years of his rule as King Henry I--shot himself in the heart, some say with a silver bullet.

Why did Christophe turn his back on Toussaint Louverture and the very revolution with which his name is so indelibly associated? How did it come to pass that Christophe found himself accused of participating in the plot to assassinate Haiti's first ruler, Dessalines? What caused Haiti to eventually split into two countries, one ruled by Christophe in the north, who made himself king, the other led by President Pétion in the south?

The First and Last King of Haiti is a riveting story of not only geopolitical clashes on a grand scale but also of friendship and loyalty, treachery and betrayal, heroism and strife in an era of revolutionary upheaval.

The Haitian Revolution was a powerful blow against colonialism and slavery, and as its thinkers and fighters blazed the path to universal freedom, they forced anticolonial, antislavery, and antiracist ideals into modern political grammar. The first state in the Americas to permanently abolish slavery, outlaw color prejudice, and forbid colonialism, Haitians established their nation in a hostile Atlantic World. Slavery was ubiquitous throughout the rest of the Americas and foreign nations and empires repeatedly attacked Haitian sovereignty. Yet Haitian writers and politicians successfully defended their independence while planting the ideological roots of egalitarian statehood.

In Awakening the Ashes, Marlene L. Daut situates famous and lesser-known eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Haitian revolutionaries, pamphleteers, and political thinkers within the global history of ideas, showing how their systems of knowledge and interpretation took center stage in the Age of Revolutions. While modern understandings of freedom and equality are often linked to the French Declaration of the Rights of Man or the US Declaration of Independence, Daut argues that the more immediate reference should be to what she calls the 1804 Principle that no human being should ever again be colonized or enslaved, an idea promulgated by the Haitians who, against all odds, upended French empire.

From nineteenth-century antislavery pamphleteering to accounts of ecological catastrophe in twenty-first-century fiction, Haitian literature has resounded across the globe since the nation's revolutionaries declared independence in 1804. Starting with pre-revolutionary writing, including the emergence of Haitian Creole letters, extending to the long, largely francophone nineteenth century, and concluding with present-day Haitian writing in the English language, A History of Haitian Literature presents the political, cultural, and historical frameworks necessary to comprehend Haiti's vast literary output. Whether writing in Haiti or its wide-ranging diasporas, Haitian authors have boldly contributed to pressing conversations in global letters while reflecting Haiti's unique cultural and historical experiences. Considering an expansive array of poets, playwrights, and novelists - such as Baron de Vastey, Juste Chanlatte, Demesvar Delorme, Edwidge Danticat, René Depestre, Kettly Mars, Dany Laferrière, and Évelyne Trouillot - the contributors to this volume offer a fresh examination of a richly polyglot, transnational literary tradition that spans more than two centuries.

The Haitian Revolution was a powerful blow against colonialism and slavery, and as its thinkers and fighters blazed the path to universal freedom, they forced anticolonial, antislavery, and antiracist ideals into modern political grammar. The first state in the Americas to permanently abolish slavery, outlaw color prejudice, and forbid colonialism, Haitians established their nation in a hostile Atlantic World. Slavery was ubiquitous throughout the rest of the Americas and foreign nations and empires repeatedly attacked Haitian sovereignty. Yet Haitian writers and politicians successfully defended their independence while planting the ideological roots of egalitarian statehood.

In Awakening the Ashes, Marlene L. Daut situates famous and lesser-known eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Haitian revolutionaries, pamphleteers, and political thinkers within the global history of ideas, showing how their systems of knowledge and interpretation took center stage in the Age of Revolutions. While modern understandings of freedom and equality are often linked to the French Declaration of the Rights of Man or the US Declaration of Independence, Daut argues that the more immediate reference should be to what she calls the 1804 Principle that no human being should ever again be colonized or enslaved, an idea promulgated by the Haitians who, against all odds, upended French empire.

The Haitian Revolution (1791-1804) was an event of monumental world-historical significance, and here, in the first systematic literary history of those events, Haiti's war of independence is examined through the eyes of its actual and imagined participants, observers, survivors, and cultural descendants. The 'transatlantic print culture' under discussion in this literary history reveals that enlightenment racial 'science' was the primary vehicle through which the Haitian Revolution was interpreted by nineteenth-century Haitians, Europeans, and U.S. Americans alike. Through its author's contention that the Haitian revolutionary wars were incessantly racialized by four constantly recurring tropes--the 'monstrous hybrid', the 'tropical temptress', the 'tragic mulatto/a', and the 'colored historian'--Tropics of Haiti shows the ways in which the nineteenth-century tendency to understand Haiti's revolution in primarily racial terms has affected present day demonizations of Haiti and Haitians. In the end, this new archive of Haitian revolutionary writing, much of which has until now remained unknown to the contemporary reading public, invites us to examine how nineteenth-century attempts to paint Haitian independence as the result of a racial revolution coincide with present-day desires to render insignificant and 'unthinkable' the second independent republic of the New World.

The Haitian Revolution (1791-1804) was the first antislavery and anticolonial uprising led by New World Africans to result in the creation of an independent and slavery-free nation state. The momentousness of this thirteen-year-long war generated thousands of pages of writing. This anthology brings together for the first time a transnational and multilingual selection of literature about the revolution, from the beginnings of the conflicts that resulted in it to the end of the nineteenth century.

With over two hundred excerpts from novels, poetry, and plays published between 1787 and 1900, and depicting a wide array of characters including, Anacaona, Makandal, Boukman, Toussaint Louverture, Jean-Jacques Dessalines, and Henry Christophe, this anthology provides the perfect classroom text for exploring this fascinating revolution, its principal actors, and the literature it inspired, while also providing a vital resource for specialists in the field. This landmark volume includes many celebrated authors--such as Alexandre Dumas, Victor Hugo, Heinrich von Kleist, Alphonse de Lamartine, William Wordsworth, Harriet Martineau, and William Edgar Easton--but the editors also present here for the first time many less-well-known fictions by writers from across western Europe and both North and South America, as well as by nineteenth-century Haitian authors, refuting a widely accepted perception that Haitian representations of their revolution primarily emerged in the twentieth century. Each excerpt is introduced by contextualizing commentary designed to spark discussion about the ongoing legacy of slavery and colonialism in the Americas. Ultimately, the publication of this capacious body of literature that spans three continents offers students, scholars, and the curious reader alike a unique glimpse into the tremendous global impact the Haitian Revolution had on the print culture of the Atlantic world.

New World Studies

The Haitian Revolution (1791-1804) was the first antislavery and anticolonial uprising led by New World Africans to result in the creation of an independent and slavery-free nation state. The momentousness of this thirteen-year-long war generated thousands of pages of writing. This anthology brings together for the first time a transnational and multilingual selection of literature about the revolution, from the beginnings of the conflicts that resulted in it to the end of the nineteenth century.

With over two hundred excerpts from novels, poetry, and plays published between 1787 and 1900, and depicting a wide array of characters including, Anacaona, Makandal, Boukman, Toussaint Louverture, Jean-Jacques Dessalines, and Henry Christophe, this anthology provides the perfect classroom text for exploring this fascinating revolution, its principal actors, and the literature it inspired, while also providing a vital resource for specialists in the field. This landmark volume includes many celebrated authors--such as Alexandre Dumas, Victor Hugo, Heinrich von Kleist, Alphonse de Lamartine, William Wordsworth, Harriet Martineau, and William Edgar Easton--but the editors also present here for the first time many less-well-known fictions by writers from across western Europe and both North and South America, as well as by nineteenth-century Haitian authors, refuting a widely accepted perception that Haitian representations of their revolution primarily emerged in the twentieth century. Each excerpt is introduced by contextualizing commentary designed to spark discussion about the ongoing legacy of slavery and colonialism in the Americas. Ultimately, the publication of this capacious body of literature that spans three continents offers students, scholars, and the curious reader alike a unique glimpse into the tremendous global impact the Haitian Revolution had on the print culture of the Atlantic world.

New World Studies

The Haitian Revolution (1791-1804) was an event of monumental world-historical significance, and here, in the first systematic literary history of those events, Haiti's war of independence is examined through the eyes of its actual and imagined participants, observers, survivors, and cultural descendants. The 'transatlantic print culture' under discussion in this literary history reveals that enlightenment racial 'science' was the primary vehicle through which the Haitian Revolution was interpreted by nineteenth-century Haitians, Europeans, and U.S. Americans alike. Through its author's contention that the Haitian revolutionary wars were incessantly racialized by four constantly recurring tropes--the 'monstrous hybrid', the 'tropical temptress', the 'tragic mulatto/a', and the 'colored historian'--Tropics of Haiti shows the ways in which the nineteenth-century tendency to understand Haiti's revolution in primarily racial terms has affected present day demonizations of Haiti and Haitians. In the end, this new archive of Haitian revolutionary writing, much of which has until now remained unknown to the contemporary reading public, invites us to examine how nineteenth-century attempts to paint Haitian independence as the result of a racial revolution coincide with present-day desires to render insignificant and 'unthinkable' the second independent republic of the New World.

Focusing on the influential life and works of the Haitian political writer and statesman, Baron de Vastey (1781-1820), in this book Marlene L. Daut examines the legacy of Vastey's extensive writings as a form of what she calls black Atlantic humanism, a discourse devoted to attacking the enlightenment foundations of colonialism. Daut argues that Vastey, the most important secretary of Haiti's King Henry Christophe, was a pioneer in a tradition of deconstructing colonial racism and colonial slavery that is much more closely associated with twentieth-century writers like W.E.B. Du Bois, Frantz Fanon, and Aim C saire. By expertly forging exciting new historical and theoretical connections among Vastey and these later twentieth-century writers, as well as eighteenth- and nineteenth-century black Atlantic authors, such as Phillis Wheatley, Olaudah Equiano, William Wells Brown, and Harriet Jacobs, Daut proves that any understanding of the genesis of Afro-diasporic thought must include Haiti's Baron de Vastey.

Focusing on the influential life and works of the Haitian political writer and statesman, Baron de Vastey (1781-1820), in this book Marlene L. Daut examines the legacy of Vastey's extensive writings as a form of what she calls black Atlantic humanism, a discourse devoted to attacking the enlightenment foundations of colonialism. Daut argues that Vastey, the most important secretary of Haiti's King Henry Christophe, was a pioneer in a tradition of deconstructing colonial racism and colonial slavery that is much more closely associated with twentieth-century writers like W.E.B. Du Bois, Frantz Fanon, and Aim C saire. By expertly forging exciting new historical and theoretical connections among Vastey and these later twentieth-century writers, as well as eighteenth- and nineteenth-century black Atlantic authors, such as Phillis Wheatley, Olaudah Equiano, William Wells Brown, and Harriet Jacobs, Daut proves that any understanding of the genesis of Afro-diasporic thought must include Haiti's Baron de Vastey.