Seed of Hope

     Invasive species are a side effect of intercontinental trade that override native ecosystem species and generate a population explosion that disrupts normal biological interactions. Most invasive species invigorate preservative and restorative environmental efforts to prevent long term or significant damage, but certain species fill ecosystem niches that prevent complete extraction. The kudzu vine, lion fish, and brown marinated stink bug are prevalent examples of invasive species currently expanding in the United States of America, but one of the first known invaders came from China at the beginning of the twentieth century. A scourge that destroyed huge portions of native American woodland and decimated lumber began in 1904 in New York City.
     The American chestnut was one of the most exceptional species of hardwood trees native to American woodlands. It provided a steady supply of nuts and lumber. Spread through the Appalachian Mountains, the American Chestnut consisted of one-third of all hardwoods in Eastern North American woodlands. The prevalence of the trees created a reliance on the mast (nut) production in early summer months that provided an off set to the autumn mast of most oak trees. Chestnut wood is also unusually resistant to rot and was useful for fence posts and shipbuilding and served as a key component to the expansion and quality of the British navy in the eighteenth century.
     Brought over by trade, the American Chestnut Blight swept through the eastern scoreboard in the first few decades of the twentieth century with the prevalence of the tree only contributing to its spread and infection. By the onset of World War II, chestnuts were ecologically extinct and were replaced by oak and maple in the woodlands of America. The tree joined the list of species negatively impacted by the spread of trade and disease. The prior importance of the chestnut to the culture of America brought the public's attention to the destroy of the native foliage and helped establish the American Park System and market hunting restrictions.

   
     After half a century of rotten stumps scattered through the new growth forests of the United States, a coalition of people interested in restoring the "king of trees" to the American woodland established the American Chestnut Foundation. Immediately they began a resistance breeding program that involved crossing the surviving American saplings with the resistant Chinese chestnut species. After more than a two decades of back-cross breeding to check for resistance to the blight, and the ACF began introducing breeding orchards to chapter houses along the chestnut's native range.
     With the documentation of the extinction of the dodo in the 1700s, the impact of humanity on the world became clear to the modern mind. By the early 1900s the impact of industrial exploitation of nature and the spread of disease through trade forced countermeasures to the unrestricted growth of capitalism. Since that time, mankind has striven to reverse some of his impacts and restore the areas of his destruction. As the most powerful, capable species on this planet, our decisions and commitments have great effect from the tiniest fungal spore to the reintroduction of the pride of the American forest, the king of trees, the mighty American Chestnut.

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Agatha Tyche

Demigod Or Demon

     The nature of history is loss. Records, memory, technologies, treasures, and empires all erode from the persistent wearing of time. Through most of history the insights and experiences of the common people are virtually unknown aside from the laws they lived under and the pottery they discarded. With the language and culture of victorious empires prevailing to spread their perspectives, the loser silently slips from consciousness until only faded words on dusty manuscripts recall the men and their deeds. Certain men can shine through the fog of history with the power of titans. The glow surrounding them illuminates the effects of their actions for a time. Charlemagne's educational reforms provide nearly all the knowledge of his era while the Roman emperors and their armies still impact laws and beliefs today.
     Unfortunately, the brilliance of an individual can overcome the other components that enable it as with Alexander the Great and his generals Parmenion, Cleitus, and Hephastion. Napoleon Bonaparte rose through the ranks of the French artillery during the chaos of the Revolution to eventually establish a short-lived empire that permanently altered the Western World. He rose because of his charisma and capability, but his continued success must be recognized from the ability of his generals and the determination of the French people. One man that sought to make France great but not for the glory of the new emperor was Thomas-Alexandre Dumas.
     A mulatto born in present-day Dominican Republic to an enslaved black woman and lower French nobleman, Dumas was the only one of his siblings to reach Europe. After business disagreements with his brother terminated his sugar plantation investments, Dumas's father sold all of his slave-born children to pay for his return to France. Four years later, his father bought back only Dumas and freed him in France in 1776.
     Forced to sell some of his estates because of his failed enterprises shortly before Alexandre's arrival in Europe, his father spoiled him with the best education and noble hobbies. However, ten years later, in 1786, his father married a French woman and cut off Dumas's allowance. Free but black, Dumas sought employment in the military, but because his skin forced him to enlist in the infantry, his father refused him his noble surname. Disowned and penniless, Thomas-Alexandre abandoned his noble heritage and enlisted in the French army under the surname of his slave-mother, Dumas.
     Courageous, brutally strong, charismatic, and strategically intelligent, Dumas enjoyed enormous success in all of his military endeavors. Proven in the skirmishes along the French border and as a riot policeman in Paris, Dumas was recruited as Second in Command into the "Black Legion," composed of free Frenchmen of color from the Americas. Thus, after eight years in the service, he was a general and led 53,000 men along the French border to defend against Italian and Austrian forces.
     Along this border on March 23, 1797, at Clausen along the Eisack River, a French battalion was pinned down and unable to cross the river by Austrian forces. Leading a small group of twenty-five or so light cavalry, including eye-witness Dermoncourt, the small assault succeeded in pushing the Austrians off the bridge. Every man was injured from bullets or sabre wounds. After the initial charge that pushed past the barricades, the French were pinned down and sought cover behind the bodies of the dead. Dumas, employing his strength, wielded his sword and engaged the Austrian enemy gallantly and alone. He struck down all that came at him until relieved by reinforcements.

     Having taken several severe wounds while succeeding in taking the bridge, Dumas earned the nickname "the Black Devil" from the terrified Austrians. His success inspired the interest of Napoleon who sent him a letter to compliment his achievement and comparedal him to the Roman hero Horatius Cocles.
     The next year Dumas accompanied Napoleon to Egypt, but division between the two emerged. While Napoleon sought his own glory, Dumas wanted French security and disproved of Napoleon's pride. With his impressive size and physique, Dumas towered over Napoleon and was mistaken by enemies as the leader of the French force. These insults burned hatred into Napoleon against Dumas culminating in signing orders for Dumas to leave Egypt for France.
     Dumas's return ship was damaged and forced to dock in Italy where he was captured and imprisoned for two years. Eventually his wife, who he has married in 1792, succeeded in petitioning his release and return to France. Upon Dumas's arrival home, Napoleon was emperor and refused to re-instate Dumas into the military and back-pay for the years of imprisonment. Seeking legal recourse as his health and finances diminished, Alexandre Dumas died of cancer in 1806.
     Napoleon's treatment of Dumas has been blamed on racism, fear, and jealousy, but regardless of the cause, his actions robbed France of a dauntless Republican general whose love for France outshone his love for his own life. Even as a general, dark-skinned Dumas suffered the effects of racism and had a unique perspective: the highest military honors and the lowest social tolerance.
     Isaac Newton credited his achievements to "standing on the shoulders of Giants." Napoleon is granted the remembrance and fascination of history, but his success came through the strength and ferocity of the French people, those fierce, loyal patriots that conquered Europe and that rushed at death with sabre and musket.
     Thomas-Alexandre Dumas, the Black Devil, lived a rough life from slavery to military glory and political betrayal. Bold, daring, and strong, he breathed for France. That fervor distilled in his son, Alexandre Dumas, who became one of the great French writers as well as one of the most influential men in modern world literature. In the spirit and darring-do of The Three Musketeers and The Count of Monte-Cristo, Alexndre Dumas never surrendered.

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Agatha Tyche