Caribbean Civilisation

The Citadelle Laferrière is a massive grey fortress perched on a mountaintop in northern Haiti, 30 kilometres south of the city of Cap-Haïtien. It was built by Henri Christophe, former slave, revolutionary, and ruler of Haiti from 1807 to 1820 — or rather, Christophe had up to twenty thousand of his fellow newly independent countrymen build it, the construction beginning in 1805 and ending some fifteen years later.

The ostensible purpose of the Citadelle Laferrière (or the Citadelle Henri Christophe, or simply the Citadelle) was to defend the country against a possible French incursion. The attack never came, but the Citadelle served another purpose: testament to the absolute power and ambition of a man who, in the space of a few short years, went from general to president to self-declared king of his country, before a military revolt led to his suicide by — as legend would have us believe — a silver bullet through the brain.