The First and Last King of Haiti

The Rise and Fall of Henry Christophe

By: Marlene L. Daut

Narrated by: Don Elivert

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.

©2025 Marlene L. Daut (P)2025 Random House Audio

Critic reviews

“A fascinating, in-depth, and meticulously researched biography of Haiti’s revolutionary-turned-king.”—EDWIDGE DANTICAT, author of Breath, Eyes, Memory

“Daut shows us, often for the first time, the various personal, cultural, political, and financial forces that created the controversial future king in all his complexity, as well as the specific contours of his leadership—and his failures. From a place of heartfelt agony, she deploys magnificent archival detective work to catalog the horrors of enslavement and the slave-based economy from which sprang the world-historic Haitian revolution, progenitor of the modern era.”—AMY WILENTZ, author of The Rainy Season: Haiti Since Duvalier

“Daut’s monumental work conclusively demystifies one of the most misunderstood, romanticized, and demonized figures of the Haitian Revolution in order to set him free once more. This is an important, signal work from one of Haiti’s leading historians.”—MYRIAM J. A. CHANCY, author of Harvesting Haiti: Reflections on Unnatural Disasters