French novelist Alexandre Dumas père, son of General Alex Dumas, is best known for writing famous works such as The Count of Monte Cristo and The Three Musketeers. Born son to the obscure General Alex Dumas, Alexandre too shared in the blood of both a black slave and a white aristocrat. General Dumas died when Alexandre was a young child of not even 4 years of age. Highly romanticized and biased towards his father, the writings left behind by Alexandre père, are basically the main source when it comes to finding out about this larger-than-life war hero that was General Dumas. In The Black Count, Tom Reiss hopes to uncover the story of General Dumas in order to write a biography that rivals Alexandre Dumas père’s greatest works of his own father.
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Alex Dumas enjoyed a brief period of equality in France. However, after the death of his mother when he was the age of 12, his father would go on to sell him into slavery to pay for his trip to Normandy. After serving for nearly 6 months, his father would repurchase him to gain his freedom and shipped him off to France to gain education. Alex proved to be well suited for the life of a French aristocrat, displaying prowess in horseback riding and swordsmanship. All the while, Alex Dumas was not spared of his descriptions of grandeur. He would be related to that of a Greek hero, tall and muscular quite possibly “one of the handsomest men you could ever meet” (71). Alex grew up during a period where his looks were considered an exotic delicacy and racial discrimination was hardly a concept to someone like him. However, when Alex’s father remarried, he became ashamed of his mixed son and cast him away without reparations. Despite not growing up in a period of violent racism, Alex was still seen as different in a socially wrong way, even if by his own father who had cared for him
Alex Dumas enjoyed a brief period of equality in France. However, after the death of his mother when he was the age of 12, his father would go on to sell him into slavery to pay for his trip to Normandy. After serving for nearly 6 months, his father would repurchase him to gain his freedom and shipped him off to France to gain education. Alex proved to be well suited for the life of a French aristocrat, displaying prowess in horseback riding and swordsmanship. All the while, Alex Dumas was not spared of his descriptions of grandeur. He would be related to that of a Greek hero, tall and muscular quite possibly “one of the handsomest men you could ever meet” (71). Alex grew up during a period where his looks were considered an exotic delicacy and racial discrimination was hardly a concept to someone like him. However, when Alex’s father remarried, he became ashamed of his mixed son and cast him away without reparations. Despite not growing up in a period of violent racism, Alex was still seen as different in a socially wrong way, even if by his own father who had cared for him