Joseph Bologne, Chevalier de Saint-Georges
(1745–1799) was born in Guadeloupe, in the Caribbean, the son of George
Bologne de Saint-Georges, a wealthy planter, and an African slave named
Nanon. Although his father also had many white children, he took a
special liking to Joseph, and in 1753 took his son, age seven, to
France, where he began his education in a variety of arts including
fencing.
According to the son of the fencing master La Boëssière, “At 15 his
[Saint-Georges’] progress was so rapid, that he was already beating the
best swordsmen, and at 17 he developed the greatest speed imaginable.”
He was still a student when he publicly defeated Alexandre Picard, a
renowned fencing-master in Rouen who had foolishly referred to
Saint-Georges as “Boëssière’s mulatto.” Heny Angelo, son of the famous
Domenico (and a highly reputed fencing master in his own right) often
went to fence with Saint-Georges while in Paris, and wrote about him in
his memoirs:
“No man ever united so much suppleness with so much
strength. He excelled in all the bodily exercises in which he engaged…He
was a skillful horseman and remarkable shot; he rarely missed his aim
when his pistol was once before the mark…but the art in which he
surpassed all his contemporaries and predecessors was fencing...."
Additional information is available here.
Source: The Greatest African-American and Afro-American Martial Artists in History
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