Saint-Georges was born into a colony where identity and place were fluid and contested. Census-makers in Guadeloupe did not create the category blanc (white) until 1729. Authorities in Guadeloupe lamented the prosperity of the presque libres, an unofficial estate of almost free persons who engaged profitably in trade and professions. Since he lived twenty-two years before the category was created, we simply do not know whether Georges de Bologne ever became blanc, any more than we know whether he became a practising catholic français. It also seems likely that Saint-Georges's mother, Anne (1722-1795), called Nanon, may have numbered amongst the presque libres, and there is some indication that cultural diversity and cosmopolitan consciousness were influences in her case as well. Anne's mother was an enslaved woman named Marguerite, and Anne was born in Grand-Cul-de-Sac on a plantation belonging to Saint-Georges's grandfather, Pierre. From the visa authorizing her voyage from Guadeloupe to Bordeaux in 1748, we have a description of Nanon as a négresse, of petite stature with a visage rougeâtre (reddish face). A number of travellers to West Africa described Fulbe, 'Mandingo' and Wolof women as beautiful, as Anne was recognized to be by contemporaries, but only the Fulbe were consistently described as having reddish brown complexions. Following his travels in West Africa between 1785 and 1787, the French geographer, Sylvain de Golbéry (1742-1822) described Fulbe women as 'spirited and handsome' with a skin colour of 'reddish black'. This is consistent with the observations recorded by his contemporary, Moreau de Saint-Méry, of enslaved Fulbe in the French colony of Saint-Domingue: leur couleur est rougeâtre (their skin colour is reddish). It is likely, therefore, as some have suggested, that Anne was of Fulbe descent. This is also not surprising given French dominance in the slave trade from the region of the Sénégal River: enslaved Africans destined for French colonies in the Caribbean first disembarked in Martinique, and Georges de Bologne's uncle