L’Expérience Royale d’Henry Christophe en Haïti
Date
2021-04-27
Author
Advisor
Jenson, Professor Deborah
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Abstract
Henry Christophe, a leader of the Haitian Revolution and the self-proclaimed “First
Monarch in the New World, Defender of Faith, Founder of the Royal and Military Order
of Saint-Henry”, founded the Kingdom of Haiti in April of 1811. Henry Christophe imitated
the courtly life and political and economic structures of Western monarchies, including
those of England, France, and Prussia. Christophe called himself a “Destroyer of tyranny,”
but in imitating the cultural norms associated with the colonial powers that had oppressed
Haiti, his violation of human rights and his harsh labor policies can be seen as a
perpetuation of the colonial mindset. However, Henry Christophe, who styled himself
as a New World black monarch, was neither completely an imitation and a copy, nor
completely original. Christophe’s empire, much like Haiti itself, is an amalgamation
of European traditions and practices originating in Africa. Through an analysis of
literature and historical sources, this thesis will analyze Henry Christophe’s regime
and the aesthetic and signficance of his kingdom’s heraldry and courtly life. In the
pursuit of this analysis, two literary works will be analyzed: the novel The Kingdom
of this World (1957) by Cuban writer Alejo Carpentier, and the play La Tragédie du
roi Christophe (1963) by Martinican writer and statesman Aimé Césaire. Both authors
rely on a Hegelian, circular philosophy of literature in which each success takes
root in, or leads instead to its antithesis, a tragedy.
Type
Honors thesisDepartment
Romance StudiesPermalink
https://hdl.handle.net/10161/22922Citation
Lochard, Marie-Line (2021). L’Expérience Royale d’Henry Christophe en Haïti. Honors thesis, Duke University. Retrieved from https://hdl.handle.net/10161/22922.Collections
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