Also known as: John Vandercook, Black Majesty, Black Majesty: The Life of Christophe, King of Haiti
Last updated: April 16, 2026
A widely circulated 1928 popular biography of Henri Christophe that became a Literary Guild selection and 'blue ribbon book' for the year, introducing Christophe as a figure of dignified Black kingship to a broad U.S. readership. Analyzed by Mary Renda in Taking Haiti as a key print object through which occupation-era Americans encountered Haiti as grandeur, monarchy, and consumable Black history. The book fed directly into occupation-era tourism imagery, including the Marine Corps Citadel pamphlet and Colombian Line cruise advertising, making Christophe and the Citadelle Laferrière marketable commodities for U.S. consumer culture even as it participated in primitivist discourse.
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John W. Vandercook. "Black Majesty: The Life of Christophe, King of Haiti." 1928. Rasin.ai, https://rasin.ai/connections/sources/black-majesty. Accessed 2026-05-05.