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Code Henry

The first comprehensive legal code of the Kingdom of Haiti, promulgated by King Henry Christophe on February 20, 1812 — a sovereign act of juridical self-determination just eight years after the world's only successful slave revolution produced an independent nation. This digital edition presents the complete Code in 3,004 articles spanning 8 laws and 67 titres — from the Loi Civile's 1,535 articles on personhood, marriage, property, and succession, to the Loi sur la Procédure Criminelle's 421 articles on investigation, confrontation, and royal clemency. Every article has been hand-extracted from 19th-century OCR, corrected, translated into English, and annotated with plain-language life lessons and scholarly notes. Browse in French, English, or Kreyòl Ayisyen. 3,004 articles · 8 laws · 3 languages · 213 years restored

3,004 articles in the Code Henry

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130
Article 130 Law Concerning Agriculture
Penalties
No owner or tenant farmer may slaughter oxen except for his own consumption, after having notified the King's lieutenant of his parish, and may not...
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No owner or tenant farmer may slaughter oxen except for his own consumption, after having notified the King's lieutenant of his parish, and may not sell the meat to the public, under the same penalties as those set forth above.

Life lesson: Slaughter for your own table only; and tell the King's lieutenant first. No selling to the public. The nation's herd is too valuable to be thinned by unregulated butchering.
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131
Article 131 Law Concerning Agriculture
Penalties
Any person convicted of theft of produce or movable property from plantations shall be prosecuted and judged according to the criminal laws.
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Any person convicted of theft of produce or movable property from plantations shall be prosecuted and judged according to the criminal laws.

Life lesson: Steal the harvest or the property of a plantation and you face the full weight of criminal law in the courts, beyond any fine or parish judge.
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132
Article 132 Law Concerning Agriculture
Penalties
Any plantation manager who has not supervised the workers' provision grounds as required by Article 25 of this law, and if as a result of...
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Any plantation manager who has not supervised the workers' provision grounds as required by Article 25 of this law, and if as a result of his negligence or indifference the provision grounds come to lack food, shall be condemned for the first offense to a fine of twelve gourdes and one month at the new barricades, doubled in case of repeat offense.

Life lesson: The manager who lets the provision grounds run dry pays twelve gourdes and serves a month. Let it happen twice and everything doubles. The workers' food supply is not negotiable.
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133
Article 133 Law Concerning Agriculture
Revenue
The proceeds from confiscations, impounds, and fines of every kind, collected in the parishes by the lieutenant judges and in the cities by the seneschals,...
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The proceeds from confiscations, impounds, and fines of every kind, collected in the parishes by the lieutenant judges and in the cities by the seneschals, shall be deposited in the customs treasury; these civil officers shall account for these proceeds to the King's prosecutors at the seneschal courts to which they report, according to the applicable laws and accounting procedures.

Life lesson: Every fine collected, every confiscation made, every impound fee paid; all of it accounted for, all of it deposited in the public treasury, all of it audited. The closing article closes the books.
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