King of Haiti, born a slave in the West India island of Grenada on the 6th of October 1767; had purchased his freedom and was employed as an overseer in the island of St. Domingo at the time of the outbreak of the blacks against the French in 1793. He was a man of gigantic stature and great courage, and placing himself at the head of a band of the insurgents, he signalized himself from the commencement of the troubles by his energy, boldness and activity in many bloody engagements. Toussaint L’Ouverture gave him a commission as brigadier-general, and he was largely instrumental in driving the French from the island, which was accomplished in about two years. During the administration of Dessalines, Christophe was general-in-chief, and after Dessalines’s death he became President for life, and was master of the northern part of the island. Meanwhile Pétion had organized another republic in Haiti, and a civil war of many years’ duration ensued, in which Christophe headed the negroes against the rule of the mulattoes, led by Pétion. In 1811 Christophe had himself proclaimed king of Haiti by the name of Henri I., and also sought to perpetuate his name by the compilation of the Code Henri, a digest founded upon the Code Napoléon. His cruelty finally provoked a revolt which he was unable to quell, and finding himself deserted by his bodyguard and all his nobles, he shot himself on the 8th of October 1820.
