Why is France protesting?

Quick facts

• Born: July 24, 1802, Villers-Cotterêts, northern France (age 68 at death)
• Died: December 5, 1870, Puys, near Dieppe, France
• Full birth name: Dumas Davy de la Pailleterie
• Known for: The Three Musketeers (1844), The Count of Monte Cristo (1844)
• Heritage: French, with paternal Haitian and African ancestry
• Languages translated into: More than 100
• Films adapted from his work: Nearly 200

Their story

Thomas-Alexandre Dumas, the novelist's father, was born in the French colony of Saint-Domingue (present-day Haiti) to Alexandre Antoine Davy de la Pailleterie, a French nobleman, and Marie-Cessette Dumas, an African woman he enslaved. Thomas-Alexandre joined the French army and rose to the rank of general at 31, the highest rank held by any Black man in a European army. His extraordinary life would later inspire elements of The Count of Monte Cristo.

The Dumas family name was adopted from Alexandre's grandmother, an enslaved Haitian woman named Marie-Césette Dumas. When the Marquis returned to France, he sold Marie-Césette and their two daughters but retained ownership of Thomas-Alexandre, taking him to France, where Thomas-Alexandre received his freedom and an education at a military school.

Thomas-Alexandre died when Alexandre was only a few years old, so the novelist was mostly raised by his mother, an innkeeper's daughter named Marie Louise Labouret, in impoverished conditions and without a formal education. His mother greatly encouraged his love of reading. Her stories of his father's brave military deeds during the glory years of Napoleon I spawned Alexandre's vivid imagination for adventure and heroes.

What they built on the page

After the restoration of the monarchy, Dumas moved to Paris, obtained employment at the Palais Royal in the office of the powerful Louis-Philippe of France, duc d'Orléans, and began writing articles for magazines and plays for the theater. His first play, performed in 1829, was a period piece called Henry III and His Courts.

Dumas is credited with well over 40 novels, which have been adapted into nearly 200 films and translated into more than 100 languages. His two most celebrated historical adventure novels, The Count of Monte Cristo and The Three Musketeers, brought him enough money to build the Château de Monte Cristo in Port Marly, Yvelines, France. His income, however, could not keep up with his extravagant spending, and he was sometimes financially insolvent between publications.

Race and what he said about it

In 1843, Dumas wrote the short novel Georges, which was critical of the racism of European society, an issue that affected him personally as the grandson of a Haitian slave. When his African ancestry was used as an insult, he famously replied: "My father was a mulatto, my grandfather was a Negro, and my great-grandfather a monkey. You see, Sir, my family starts where yours ends."

Legacy

His remains were transferred to the Panthéon in Paris, France's highest honor, making Dumas the first person of acknowledged African ancestry to be interred there. The thread running through this conversation, from Mansa Musa to Sonni Ali to the protests unfolding on French streets today, keeps arriving at the same truth: Africa shaped the world, and the world often forgot to say so. Dumas is one of the clearest examples. The man whose stories France claims as its own carried African blood in his veins and his surname on his pen.