Apart from its extraordinarily diverse landscapes — lush rainforest; dry, cactus-filled desert; imposing mountains — the Caribbean region also offers a rich array of architecture, reflecting its varied historical legacy. There are gabled Dutch warehouses in Curaçao, an eccentric Eiffel-designed library in Martinique, and crumbling Spanish mansions in Havana.
French, Dutch and English all left their mark, as did the communities that settled over the centuries with Hindu temples, mosques, and every style of church.
Many buildings are humble — reflecting the Caribbean’s long periods of poverty and inequality. Only a few, mostly the homes of expatriate billionaires or luxury hotels, might be described as palatial. And just one is strictly speaking a royal palace — the official residence of a monarch. Ironically enough, this majestic structure is to be found in the region’s poorest country: Haiti.
The palace is called Sans Souci (for unexpected reasons that will be described later), and was built on a former sugar plantation in the mountainous north of the country over a three-year period that culminated in its official opening in 1813.
Together with the vast Citadelle Laferrière fortress — about five miles away and far higher — Sans Souci (meaning “carefree” in English) was the pride of Haiti’s only monarch, King Henry (born Henri Christophe), and its completion 210 years ago marked the high point of his colourful and ultimately tragic reign.
How Haiti, which in 1804 declared independence from France after an epic 13-year war of liberation, came to have the Caribbean’s only king is the subject of a fascinating new book, Black Crown (www.hurstpublishers.com) by experienced travel writer Paul Clammer.
The revolution had overthrown mighty France in its most prosperous colony of Saint-Domingue (modern day Haiti), and defied the military power not only of Napoleon Bonaparte but also Britain and Spain — both of which hoped to profit from the French defeat.
The age was one of revolutionary republicanism across the Americas, and kings were despised as symbols of the ancien régime and the system of slavery.
But as Clammer’s detailed account of Henri Christophe’s life reveals, the chaotic conditions that followed the slave revolution and the divisions within the fledgling independent state — between north and south, military and political elites, gradations of skin colour — created a moment when a prominent, formerly enslaved freedom fighter could crown himself king, despite Haiti’s claim to be the world’s first Black republic.
Born into enslavement in the British colony of St Kitts in 1767, Christophe led a largely undocumented life until he became a leading revolutionary commander and an heir to Toussaint Louverture — the iconic leader of the first slave rebellion.
Nowadays, Sans Souci is perhaps a minor attraction compared to the giant Citadelle, the great bastion that Christophe had built in case the French ever attempted to retake their ex-colony. That was a solid symbol of military deterrence, but Sans Souci — closer to the small town of Milot — was intended both as royal residence and as a statement of regal prestige.
Christophe declared himself king in March 1811 after seven years of political turmoil, splitting the country between his northern kingdom and a republic in the south. He had been briefly president of the north, but as Clammer suggests, his choice of royal status was meant to suggest a divine right to absolute rule and to appeal to many of his subjects with roots in African kingdoms. The palace was to project the permanence and grandeur of his monarchy within Haiti — which he hoped one day to unify — and to the wider world.
Visitors to the palace today will find an atmospheric ruin rather than an opulent palace, as Sans Souci was largely destroyed by a catastrophic earthquake in 1842 and subsequently looted and neglected before UNESCO world heritage status was conferred in 1982.
But even the present-day shell of the building — sitting among tropical vegetation and towering mountains — conveys the spectacular scale and impact of the palace in its heyday. Rugged terrain was landscaped into an ornamental park, while a classical, domed chapel sat to one side of the main building — a vast, Baroque structure more than 50 yards long. Clammer writes:
The chaotic conditions that followed the revolution created a moment when a prominent, formerly enslaved freedom fighter could crown himself king
“[Its] two storeys were faced with an extravagant 23 bays with high rectangular doors and windows and immense pilasters … Finished in yellow plaster with white detailing, the entire palace gleamed in the sun … it was almost certainly the grandest building in the Caribbean — and possibly in the Americas.”
The interior was a luxurious assemblage of silk curtains, splendid mirrors and tapestries and specially commissioned artworks throughout a banqueting hall, throne room and grand salon.
The palace was meant to impress, and King Henry made a huge effort to attract international support by presenting himself and his court as regal and cultured. He and his advisers were aware that France remained a threat and that positive relations with other European powers as well as the newly independent United States might help Haiti’s survival.
Opponents of slavery responded positively to his diplomatic overtures, and Christophe’s influential secretary — the Baron de Vastey — forged links with British, German, and American officials and intellectuals.
Yet there were others who sought to ridicule the slave-turned-king, and hostile observers suggested that Sans Souci was a pastiche of European luxury — an absurd extravagance for a poor new nation. French visitors mocked the ornate uniforms worn at court and the aristocratic titles that Christophe bestowed on his close circle — the Duc de Marmelade, for instance — not realising that it was the French planters who had first created such picturesque place names.
Eventually, though, King Henry’s kingdom was to collapse, partly because of his authoritarian rule and partly under pressure from the republican south of the country. After a debilitating stroke in August 1820, Christophe’s power ebbed away, and on 8 October he shot himself in the royal apartment at Sans Souci. Haiti was soon after unified as a single republic.
King Henry enjoyed only seven years in his palace, which was reputed to have cost thousands of lives in its rapid and ruthless construction. There were thus many ghosts in and around Sans Souci — but one in particular haunted the royal abode.
Commentators assumed that Christophe had named his palace after Frederick the Great’s spectacular residence in Potsdam, a rival to the splendour of Versailles. But as Clammer’s excellent book points out, there was another more local reason for the name.
Jean-Baptiste Sans Souci was a powerful leader during the war of independence against the French, but fell out with Christophe and Toussaint Louverture over tactics. Christophe invited him to peace talks near Milot sometime in 1803 — and had him murdered and buried.
The royal palace, with all its Baroque splendour, was thus built on the grave of a political adversary and — in a bizarre tribute — named after the king’s own murder victim.
