By Marlene L. Daut
In 1948, when he was just 19-years old, the St. Lucian poet and playwright Derek Walcott wrote his first play, Henri Christophe: A Chronicle in Seven Scenes. The play went on to be published in Bridgetown, Barbados in 1950, and thereafter it was played on the radio and staged in London in 1952. That performance was directed by Errol Hill, who later taught as a distinguished scholar of theatre at my current place of employment, Yale University. Hill also played Christophe's most prolific and important secretary Baron de Vastey; while the voice of the narrator was performed by the famous Barbadian author George Lamming.
BBC correspondent Henry Swanzy, producer of a British radio show called “Caribbean Voices,” had this to say in his review of the performance for the magazine Public Opinion:
“Derek Walcott’s verse-play did not go well on the radio. Like most poets, he gives very much the same style to all his characters; and, again like most poets, the structure of the play does not show a great sense of theatrical form. For this reason, the supporters of West Indian writing in London did not look forward with any excessive enthusiasm to the staging of the play at the British Council Student Centre in Hans Crescent, incidentally now under a Jamaican, Hugh Paget. Even those immediately responsible for the production had their doubts, and the invitation lists were very limited. No one expected the final result, which was nothing more or less than one of the most exciting and vital performances of a poetic writer, by any group whatever, in any theatre whatever, in London in the last few years.
The first credit must go to the producer, Errol Hill, a Trinidadian dramatic scholar, who has just completed his training at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. He had also been responsible for the mounting of the radio production, and he had learned several things from that experience. Several of the scenes were pruned, so far as I know, one cut out, and one added to give continuity, between the murder of Dessalines and the advent of Christophe. Hill’s casting was excellent, not least in self-denial.”
Although it was initially a rocky beginning for the budding playwright, both the Haitian Revolution and the life of Henry Christophe remained subjects to which Walcott, like many Black writers of his era, including Langston Hughes, Aimé Césaire, and CLR James, would return again and again, and to much acclaim. In fact, in 2002, under the title of The Haitian Trilogy, Walcott, who won the Nobel Prize in 1992, published together the three plays about the events that led to Haitian independence that he wrote over the course of his long and hugely successful career (with Christophe appearing as a character in each): Henri Christophe (1948), Drums and Colours (1958), and The Haytian Earth (1984).
Noting the quasi-obsession of Black writers like Walcott with what he called "the most epic struggle to end slavery in the Americas," Hill observed:
“The Haitian revolution engendered more plays by black authors than any other single event in the history of race. The principal leaders of the insurrection are the granite from which legendary heroes are hewn.”
Despite his clear and enduring interest in the Haitian Revolution, and its storied “heroes,” Walcott's relationship to Haiti was anything but simple. Discussing his first play Henri Christophe in his 1998 book of essays What the Twilight Says, for example, Walcott called Christophe and Dessalines those “slave-kings” who “structured their own despair.” Walcott often couldn't seem to square the past, present, or future of Haiti. To that end, in his foreword to The Haitian Triology, he wrote, “The Haitian Revolution, as sordidly tyrannical as so many of its subsequent regimes tragically became, was an upheaval, a necessary rejection of the debasements endured under a civilized empire, that achieved independence.”
(Casting credits for Derek Walcott's 1984 film The Haytian Earth, listing actors who portrayed Toussaint, Dessalines, and Christophe)
I wrote about Walcott's often torturous portrayal of the Haitian revolutionary leaders at length in chapter four of my book Baron de Vastey and the Origins of Black Atlantic Humanism (2017). But on this Thanksgiving Day (2025), instead of further delving into the St. Lucian bard's complex and often contradictory portrayals of Haiti, I thought I'd just offer up this remarkable but little known gem from Haitian revolutionary film history: Walcott's 1984 film version of The Haytian Earth, commissioned by St. Lucia's Ministry of Education and Culture. The movie was entirely shot on location in St. Lucia, with Walcott directing. And you can watch the film (broken down into five parts) over at Roku for free: https://therokuchannel.roku.com/details/7f07fe95cb5d39f5ca6594e831eef60b/the-haytian-earth
Ayibobo, zanmi mwen yo!
To cite this article, Marlene L. Daut, "Derek Walcott and the King of Haiti," King of Haiti's World Blog, November 27, 2025 <https://marlenedaut.com/blog/derek-walcott-and-the-king-of-haiti-by-marlene-l-dautin-1948-when-he-was>