Alexandre Dumas Was Mocked as "The Negro" in Paris —His Haitian Bloodline Finally Revealed the Truth

Alexandre Dumas, author of The Three Musketeers and The Count of Monte Cristo, was the grandson of Marie-Cessette Dumas, an enslaved woman from a plantation near Jérémie, Saint-Domingue. His father became a French general. His own ancestry was used against him in print. No DNA test has revealed this bloodline. A few fragile documents did. This video walks through what they say, and what they do not. In this video we walk through: 📌 Who Marie-Cessette Dumas was, and the limits of what the record says about her 📌 How Thomas-Alexandre Dumas was born into slavery in Jérémie, taken to France in 1776 and rose to command the Army of the Alps 📌 Napoleon, the Taranto prison and the 1802 law that restored slavery 📌 The 1845 pamphlet that attacked Dumas's race, and the wordplay on the French word "nègre" 📌 Where the famous reply "my family starts where yours ends" really comes from, and why we do not place it in Paris 📌 What population-level Haitian DNA can and cannot say about one family Important note, stated directly in the video: we found no DNA study of the Dumas family and no confirmed African origin for Marie-Cessette. Several details differ across sources (the 1776 sale, the number of siblings, the date of her death, the origin of the name Dumas), and the video says so each time. 🔎 Want to find your family's story? Book your surname search. The link is in the pinned comment. 🧬 Ready to trace your roots? Book your surname search and family research today. The link is in the pinned comment. 💬 Tell us your surname and your region of Haiti below. Type 1 if your family knows a woman ancestor's name, 2 if you only know a man's, 3 if you do not know any names yet. Sources referenced in this video: - Alexandre Dumas: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexandre_Dumas - Thomas-Alexandre Dumas: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas-Alexandre_Dumas - Marie-Cessette Dumas: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marie-Cessette_Dumas - Tom Reiss, The Black Count (2012; 2013 Pulitzer Prize): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Black_Count:_Glory,_Revolution,_Betrayal,_and_the_Real_Count_of_Monte_Cristo - Eugène de Mirecourt: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eug%C3%A8ne_de_Mirecourt - Review of Bernard Fillaire, Alexandre Dumas, Auguste Maquet et associés: https://voyages.ideoz.fr/alexandre-dumas-auguste-maquet-et-associes-alexandre-dumas-et-sa-negritude/ - Was Alexandre Dumas Black? (The Collector): https://thecollector.com/was-alexandre-dumas-black - Alexandre Dumas (Wikiquote): https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Alexandre_Dumas - Moreno-Estrada et al., "Reconstructing the population genetic history of the Caribbean," PLoS Genetics (2013) - Simms et al., Y-chromosome study of Haitians, Florida International University (2012) 🔔 Subscribe — this channel gets built directly out of your comments, one documented record at a time. #HaitianHistory #HaitianGenealogy #AlexandreDumas #FamilyHistory #HaitianAncestry #GenealogyResearch #TraceYourRoots