Dumas did not generally define himself as a black man

[PollyPeachum]

Why should he have ? In France we do not define ourselves by the colour of our skins, but by our politics. In his days, Dumas was known as a Romantic and a Republican. I suppose he saw himself as a throw-back from a more heroic age, a kind of modern, revolutionary d'Artagnan. He worshipped his father, who seems to have enjoyed a huge success with the ladies, especially with one of Napoleon's sisters (see Dumas's Mémoires). Being colored was no obstacle to Dumas senior's becoming a general in the republican army in the late 18th century, and he fell off with Bonaparte on purely political grounds.

[Darlin]

I rather think the use of the word 'colored' by you would imply something of racial issues even now as no one uses that word any more. I have heard that it was not quite a big issue in his day yet it had to have been an issue to some degree or why else would the 'joke' of him posing as his footman have been passed down to us?