Henri Christophe (1767-1820) was a Haitian patriot and king. Though he is mostly remembered for the Citadelle, the fortress he built, equally impressive was his organizational genius, which created a prosperous and solvent Haiti.

Born a slave, Henri Christophe originally came from the British island of St. Christopher (St. Kitts), from which he took his name. He bought his freedom in Saint Domingue and later added the English name of Henry (French, Henri) as a token of his admiration of England.

Christophe gained an early reputation as an independence fighter under Toussaint L'Ouverture in the 1791 antislavery rebellion. When French troops invaded Haiti in 1802 to reassert France's right to the former colony, Christophe was commanding Haitian troops in Cap-Français (modern Cap-Haitien). After Toussaint's capture by the French, Christophe served as a general under Haiti's military ruler, Jean Jacques Dessalines.

Following Dessalines's assassination in 1806, Christophe took over as...