Joseph Bo(u)logne -- Guadeloupe
Joseph Bo(u)logne, Chevalier de Saint-George 
was an important figure on the Paris music scene in the second half of the 18th century as a composer, conductor, and violinist. Before the revolution in France, he was also famous as a swordsman. Known as the "black Mozart" he was one of the earliest musicians of African ancestry to play European classical music.
Born 25 December 1745 on a plantation near Basse-Terre, on the French Caribbean island of Guadeloupe. He was the son of Anne Nanon a former slave and a French French plantation owner George de Bologne de Saint-Georges. In 1747 George Bologne was falsely accused of murder, and fled to France with Nanon and her child to prevent them being enslaved.
After two years he was granted a royal pardon and the family returned to Guadeloupe. In 1753, George took Joseph back to France where he was enrolled in a private academy. At the age of 13 Saint-George became a pupil of La Boëssière, a master of arms, and excelled in all exercises, especially fencing. While still a student, Saint-George beat Alexandre Picard, a fencing-master of Rouen, who had mocked him as ‘La Boëssière’s upstart mulatto’. He also studied literature and horseback riding, and became an exceptional violinist.
On 5 April 1762, King Louis XV decreed that people of colour (blacks (nègres) and mulattos) must register with the clerk of the Admiralty within two months. On 10 May 1762, La Bossière registered Saint-George as "Joseph de Boulogne". On graduating at the age of 19, he was made a Gendarme de la Garde du Roi (member of the royal guard). After the end of the Seven Years' War, George Bologne returned to his Guadeloupe plantations, leaving his son in France with a handsome annuity. The young chevalier became the darling of fashionable society; contemporary accounts speak of his romantic conquests. In 1766 the Italian fencer Giuseppe Faldoni came to Paris to challenge Saint-George, Faldoni won but proclaimed Saint-George the finest swordsman in Europe.
In 1771, he was appointed maestro of the Concert des Amateurs, and later director of the Concert de la Loge Olympique, the biggest orchestra of his time (65-70 musicians). This orchestra commissioned Joseph Haydn to compose six symphonies, which Saint-George conducted for their world premiere. He was selected for appointment as the director of the Royal Opera of Louis XVI. But this was prevented by three Parisian who petitioned the Queen against the appointment, they objected to singing on stage under the direction of "a mulatto". To spare St. George public humiliation, the King decreed that henceforth the position of director could only be filled by promotion from within the ranks of the orchestra.
Thwarted in his musical career, Saint-George earned fresh renown as a competitive fencer, he had already been dubbed "chevalier" by appreciative crowds at the Palais Royal. Like many others associated with the aristocracy and the royal court at Versailles, Saint-George served in the army of the Revolution against France's foreign enemies. Saint-George would pay dearly for becoming the first black colonel of the French army, in its fight for the Revolution. He took command of a regiment of a thousand free coloured volunteers, with these troops, he arrested General Miaczinski at Lille, thwarting the betrayal of General Dumouriez. However, because of Miaczinski aristocratic parentage and past association with the royal court, Saint-George was dismissed from the army on 25September 1793, accused of using public funds for personal gain.
He was acquitted after spending 18 months in jail and after the revolution, Saint-George continued to lead orchestras, but abandoned by his former patrons, his circumstances became straitened and his lifestyle bore little resemblance to that he enjoyed under the monarchy. Joseph de Boulogne, Chevalier de Saint-George died in 1799 at the age of 54. In the ensuing 200 years, he fell largely into obscurity.