the Unsung: Black History Month day 23- Alexandre Dumas

Good afternoon, friends. Today we take a brief look at one of the most famous entries in this series of Black History Month accounts- the famous author of the Three Musketeers, Alexandre Dumas.

Dumas was born in 1802 in France.

The Dumas family name was adopted from Alexandre’s grandmother, an enslaved Haitian woman named Marie-Césette Dumas. His grandfather was the Marquis Alexandre Antoine Davy de La Pailleterie. Thomas-Alexandre took the name Dumas when he enlisted in Napoleon’s army, where he acquired the dubious nickname “Black Devil.”

Dumas father went on to become a French general, the highest position yet for any Black man of the era. Dumas had some formal training at school after his father’s passing but was largely self taught. He took a position writing for a notary in Paris before completing high school.

Dumas began writing plays prolifically at this period but his intellectual interests expanded well beyond comedy or drama:

His interests also encompassed crime and scandals and wrote eight volumes of essays on infamous cases in history such as that of Lucrezia Borgia and Cesare Borgia, and names more contemporary to his time, like Karl Ludwig Sand. But he achieved widespread success with his novels The Count of Monte Cristo and The Three Musketeers, initially published as serials.

Dumas was extremely prolific, writing a wide array of romance fiction including a series about Marie Antoinette and other historical accounts. His writings became so successful throughout Europe of the 1800s that he bought a large castle as a writers sanctuary. He eventually fell into debt and fled to Belgium then Russia to avoid creditors. He continued to write and publish books all the while. He died in 1870 of natural causes.

Editor’s note: While it is incredibly important to remark on Dumas’ lionshare of literary importance in European history, it’s jarring to note how often Dumas’ race is ignored or otherwise whitewashed in contemporary depictions of him. Despite having obvious heritage related to the African Diaspora, Dumas was portrayed by white actors in film so much so that his ancestry comes as a footnote of surprise in historical retellings of Dumas’ life.