5.21.2010 Milot: Citadelle Laferrière

Dom and I have been hearing about the Citadelle since we arrived in Haiti. We have seen it in street painting but never in person!

Here is a little history for you:

The Citadelle Laferrière is a large mountaintop fortress located in northern Haiti. It is the largest fortress in the Americas and was designated by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) as a World Heritages site in 1982. The mountaintop fortress has itself become an icon of Haiti. The Citadel was built by Henri Christophe a key leader during the Haitian slave rebellion, after Haiti gained independence from France at the beginning of the 19th century
The massive stone structure was built by up to 20,000 workers between 1805 and 1820 as part of a system of fortifications designed to keep the newly-independent nation of Haiti safe from French incursions. The Citadel was built several miles inland, and atop the 3,000 ft (910 m) Bonnet a L’Eveque mountain, to deter attacks and to provide a lookout into the nearby valleys. Cap-Haïtien and the adjoining Atlantic Ocean are visible from the roof of the fortress. Anecdotally, it is possible to sight the eastern coast of Cuba some 90 miles (140 km) to the west, on clear days.

The Haitians outfitted the fortress with 365 cannons of varying size. Enormous stockpiles of cannonballs still sit in pyramidal stacks at the base of the fortress walls. Since its construction, the fortress has withstood numerous earthquakes, though a French attack never came Henri Christophe initially commissioned the fortress in 1805. At the time, Christophe was a general in the Haitian army and chief administrator of the country's northern regions. In 1806, along with co-conspirator Alexandre Petion, Christophe launched a coup against Haiti's emperor, Jean-Jacques Dessalines. Dessalines's death led to a power struggle between Christophe and Pétion, which ended with Haiti divided into northern and southern compartments, with the north under Christophe's presidency by 1807. He declared himself king in 1811.

Christophe suffered a stroke in 1820, and some of his troops mutinied. Shortly afterwards, he committed suicide, according to legend, by shooting himself with a silver bullet. Loyal followers covered his body in quicklime and entombed it in one of the Citadel's interior courtyards to prevent others from mutilating the corpse.

The day Dom and I went to the citadelle it was completely enveloped in fog or cloud forests as we like to call them here. It made for some interesting photographs as fog is so reflective.

 The walls of the citadel rose out of the fog like shadows. The scale of this place was amazing.

There were cannons everywhere! They were beautiful.

I did not know that the citadel was seriously damaged by an earthquake. But at one point, I flashed by camera flash at the ceiling and almost had a heart attack. There were cracks all the way up the wall for 4 floors. The floors themselves were completely gone. This place was a relic of what the earthquake of 1842 left behind. I have to admit my one thought at that moment was I needed to get out of there pronto!

Later that evening we met a geologist at our hotel. He said his company had done some extensive studies of the area, and they believe that Cap Hatien is due for 9.0 eathquake any day. As I was trying to fall asleep that night, I wondered if Dom and I had seen it just in time. I can't imagine that the building could hold up considering that considerable damage that has been done to it.

For more photos got to the Haiti Gallery at www.crystalinerandazzo.com

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