In 1805 he took part under Jean-Jacques Dessalines in the capture of Santo Domingo (now Dominican Republic), against French forces who acquired the colony from Spain in the Treaty of Basel.

[3] Under his policies of corvée, or forced labor bordering on slavery,[4] the Kingdom earned revenues from agricultural production, primarily sugar, but the Haitian people resented the system.

He reached an agreement with the United Kingdom to respect its Caribbean colonies in exchange for their warnings to his government of any French naval activity threatening Haiti.

Claims about Henri Christophe's place of birth and life before coming to prominence have been contested since the early nineteenth century.

[citation needed] Beginning with the slave uprising of 1791, Christophe distinguished himself as a soldier in the Haitian Revolution and quickly rose to be a colonel during the revolutionary years.

He fought for years with Toussaint Louverture in the north, participating in numerous battles during the revolution, and eventually rising to the rank of commander-in-chief at Cap-Français.

[10] The French deported Toussaint Louverture to France, and brought in more than 20,000 new troops under the Vicomte de Rochambeau in an effort to regain control of the colony and re-establish slavery.

The barrister Gaspar de Arredondo y Pichardo wrote, "40 children had their throats cut at the Moca's church, and the bodies found at the presbytery, which is the space that encircles the church's altar..."[14] This event was one of several documented accounts of atrocities perpetrated by General Christophe under the orders of Dessalines; they retreated from the Spanish-speaking side of the island after their failed invasion attempt.

On 6 April 1805, having gathered all his troops, General Christophe took all male prisoners to the local cemetery and proceeded to slit their throats, among them Presbyter Vásquez and 20 more priests.

On his way out he took along, fashioned like a herd, 249 women, 430 girls and 318 boys, a steep figure considering the relatively low population of the town at that time.

Alejandro Llenas wrote that Christophe took 997 from Santiago alone, and "Monte Plata, San Pedro and Cotuí were reduced to ashes, and their residents either had their throats slit or were taken captives by the thousands, like farm animals, tied up and getting beaten on their way to Haiti.

[16] Pétion became President of the "Republic of Haïti" in the south, where he was backed by General Jean-Pierre Boyer, a personne de couleur who controlled the southern armies.

[17] Christophe named his legitimate son Jacques-Victor Henry heir apparent, giving him the title of Prince Royal of Haïti.

Christophe had to choose whether to enforce a version of the slave plantation system to increase agricultural production, or to subdivide the land into parcels for peasants' subsistence farming.

King Henry chose to enforce corvée plantation work, a system of forced labor, in lieu of taxes, but also began his massive building projects.

[19] As king, Christophe created an elaborate Haitian peerage (nobility), originally consisting of four princes, eight dukes, 22 counts, 40 barons, and 14 knights ("chevaliers").

[20] The Treaty of Paris, ratified on 30 May, gave neighboring Santo Domingo back to Spain, and granted an extra five years of slave trade in which to recoup losses entailed by abolition of slavery.

Toward the end of Christophe's reign, public sentiment opposed what many considered his feudal policies of forced labor, which he intended to use to develop the country.

[25] Ill and infirm at age fifty-three, King Henry died by suicide by shooting himself with a silver bullet rather than risk a coup and assassination.