The “first crowned monarch of the New World”: Monarchical legitimation and symbolic politics of Henry I of Haiti (1811–1820)

Abstract

ABSTRACT This article analyses the relationship between the postcolonial condition and monarchical legitimation in North Haiti during the reign of King Henry I (1811–1820). For Henry and the North Haitian elites, the choice of monarchy represented an attempt at postcolonial socio-political consolidation inasmuch as a strategy towards the recognition of independence by European powers which themselves underwent a monarchical reconstruction after 1814. Far from being a mere copy of European models, Henry’s symbolic politics justified the regime’s political existence against French neocolonial ambitions. Reinscribing the Haitian monarchy into a postrevolutionary Atlantic world, this article examines its reception by and exchanges with Britain and the German states and also considers its contestation by the South Haitian republic. Against the backdrop of North Haiti’s interaction with the European monarchies, this study proposes understanding the Christophean monarchy as a restoration regime responding to both revolutionary and colonial legacies by adopting a monarchical orientation.