He was the eldest son of Kenneth Francis Mackenzie,[1] who had plantation interests in the West Indies, and at the time of Fedon's Rebellion acted as president of the council in Grenada;[2] there are sources stating that Charles Mackenzie would have been classified as a Negro in the USA.
He was educated at the University of Edinburgh, where he befriended James Cowles Prichard,[1] and served in the Peninsular War.
[1] During the latter part of his life he lived mostly in the United States, where he died on 6 July 1862 at a fire at the Rainbow Hotel on Beekman Street[6] in New York City.
[4] Mackenzie published Notes on Haiti in two volumes (1830), based on his period 1826–7 as British consul there, and including both economic statistics and social observations.
[7] Parts were republished shortly by John Brown Russwurm, to publicise the Haitian Revolution.