Quick Summary

The story begins during empires and colonies. At a time when humans were bought and sold like any other property. When the “inalienable rights of man” were not extended to people of color. When they held the truth to be self-evident, that all men and women were not created equal. Not all people deserved life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

For now, we will focus on France at the height of its empirical power, which extended all over the world. This included a small group of islands in the Caribbean called Guadeloupe. Minor French nobility made the long voyage to take huge tracts of land. They used enslaved people, both indigenous and African, to work on their highly lucrative sugar plantations.

History is never black and white and people of surprising resilience and character often appear. Such is the backdrop for a remarkable individual who was born in 1745 to the a slave on a plantation in Guadeloupe. He grew up to become Europe’s best swordsman, a virtuoso violinist, a composer, a conductor or orchestras, an anti-slavery activist and a hero of the French Revolution

If you’ve never heard of the Chevalier de Saint-George, he was almost erased from history. Here is just one story from his extraordinary life.