The Black Count

Tom Reiss's The Black Count is a fascinating read on the life of Alex Dumas, the mulatto father of famous French novelist, Alexandre Dumas. Dumas's father significantly shaped his son's literature, and therefore influenced French national identity (as well as reaching great prestige and power in France's military during the Revolutionary period, a testament to the vast array of African experiences in European history), so the story of Dumas's general father, son of a Saint-Dominguan slave woman and a less than noble aristocrat in Jeremie (modern Haiti) is one deserving more attention. Of course, one could critique Reiss's book for some anachronistic views on race, mainly referring to Dumas as a 'black' at various times, despite the experience of people of color and mixed origins being quite different (varying with class, of course). I suspect using the American 'one drop rule' view of blackness made more sense to the author, as well as for marketing purposes. It sounds better and is easier to refer to Dumas as the 'Black Count' rather than the "Mulatto" or "Half-breed."

Anyway, another problem I had with the book was how little of Dumas's life in Saint Domingue was revealed. His mother's personal life or history is essentially non-existent, and though Dumas lived in Saint Domingue until thirteen (he received a 'proper' and aristocratic education in France when his father sent for him after abandoning his son in the colony to return to France and take on his title and whatever remained from his family's wealth), so much of Dumas's early life remains lost (although finding sources on that period would be excessively difficult, compared to the amount of documentation one could find in France or in personal letters from Dumas, his loved ones, etc.). In addition, Reiss does not do enough to connect the dots between the Haitian and French Revolutions (and when he does, he overlooks or reveals his ignorance of Afro-Europe), espeically in how he seems to sincerely believe that Dumas's rise to fame in the French revolutionary military had no precedent. People of African descent could rise to all kinds of positions of authority in the last 500 years of European history, including scholars, professors, writers, aristocrats, artists, skilled laborers, musicians, composers, etc.). Indeed, Reiss has quite a bit to say about the Chevalier de Saint George, another man of color with roots in the French Antilles, who was Marie-Antoinette's favored violinist and a prominent man on the Parisian social scene (and involved in the military).

If one looks at Revolutionary-era France in the context of the the degree to which 'liberal' bourgeois revolutions were 'inclusive' or anti-racist, I suppose it was ahead of the rest of Europe, but given the long history of African-European relations, one could not help but feel that Reiss was too positive in his portrait of the Revolution (though appropriately critical of many courses it would take, such as the rise of Napoleon, or the restoration of racial discrimination and slavery in legislation, not to mention the brutal French suppression and re-enslavement of the people of Guadeloupe or Leclerc's attempt to conquer Saint-Domingue and the savage violence with which white Europeans attacked, killed, sold into slavery, and tortured black and mixed-race Saint-Dominguans). I suppose what I am mostly getting at his how mainstream audiences still need an accessible history (much like The Black Count) that goes into great depth to reveal how influential people of African descent were in Europe, from Rome to the present.

At the end of the day, Reiss's text is successful as a biography of a man whose treatment by the racist Napoleon and French state revealed how elusive racial equality remained/s in France. The 'Black Devil" (as he was called by Austrians) would lead numerous campaigns in Europe and even Napoleon's foolish Egyptian campaign, only to be imprisoned in Italy (one aspect of his life that would influence The Count of Monte Cristo, as well as his military experiences shaping The Three Musketeers, and his mixed-race experience as a slave/free person of color, Dumas's lesser known novel, Georges). After reading this book and how much Napoleon hated Dumas (some of it due to Dumas's towering stature and being perceived by the Egyptians as the leader of the French army), one cannot help but feel that the fate of the slaves/ex-slaves in the colonies and the French republic would have been better served with a true believer in republicanism, like Dumas. Despite all the 'good' reforms and liberal policies promoted by Napoleon (such as protections of Jewish communities in Europe in areas conquered by Napoleon) and the supposedly 'good' spread of the Napoleonic legal code, the man's real legacy can be seen in dismantling radical abolitionism, warmongering, and imperialism. There are quite a few Europeanists and French historians I could and should recommend this book to to correct some of their ignorance or undue praise and obsession with Napoleon.