1797–1818: (The Kingdom of the North: Fermage, the Code Rural, and the Cultivator’s Day): A British visitor at Cap Henry in 1818 characterized the King as a …

1797–1818: (The Kingdom of the North: Fermage, the Code Rural, and the Cultivator’s Day): A British visitor at Cap Henry in 1818 characterized the King as a fine portly-looking man about five feet ten inches, quite black, with a manner and countenance that was very intelligent, pleasant, and expressive when in good humor, but whose gusts of passion could only be compared to a hurricane for their fury. Long before ascending the throne, Henry had commenced reconstruction dating from his early collaboration with Vincent in the Petite-Anse, and his system of fermage — with interruptions — went back to 1797: state-owned plantations were let out to managers and worked by noir cultivators bound to the land, whose lives were wholly regulated and efforts rigorously, if far more paternally, exacted than in the days of Dessalines or Toussaint. Under Henry’s Code Rural, overseers sounded the daily rising bell at 3:00 A.M., work commenced in the fields at 4:30 following prayers and breakfast, with pauses for lunch between 8:00 and 9:00, dinner and midday rest from noon until 2:00 P.M., and labor resuming until sundown, ceasing only with the Angelus — Saturday was the cultivators’ day for their own plots and market, and Sunday after church was a day of rest. The cultivator’s wage was one-fourth the total yield, distributed by the planter-manager who also had to feed, clothe, house, and care for the worker and his family.