Registration details can be found in the Journal Officiel.
The Association des Amis du Général Dumas was created in 2006 by the Guadeloupian historian, philosopher and writer Claude Ribbe, to mark the 200th anniversary of the death of General Dumas. The goal of the association is to make the figure of General Dumas a part the French history, by recognising its leading role in the construction of the French Nation.
Indeed, it was the first Afro-Caribbean general of the French army. Born a slave, he distinguished himself in the revolutionary wars to defend the Republic from a return to monarchy. Appreciated and recognised by Bonaparte before the restoration of slavery, Dumas however protested against the execution of 4,000 prisoners after taking Jaffa, which created a division between the the two men. In 1802, he became a victim of the racial purification of the army that was occurring at the time of the insurrection of Santo Domingo, and was dismissed as a general of division and deprived of his pension by Napoleon Bonaparte.
Since 2002, the Association of the Amis du Général Alexandre Dumas fights for the General Dumas to receive the Légion d’Honneur, created by Napoleon Bonaparte on the 19th of May 1802 - the eve of the restoration of slavery - either posthumously (after changing the regulations) or symbolically, and for the President of the Republic to solemnly declare that the General Dumas is a member of the Légion d’Honneur since it was created. The presidents Chirac and Sarkozy categorically refused to grant that request, despite it being supported by the PS and UMP elected representatives of the Aisne and by a petition with over 6,000 signatures.
The Association des Amis du Général Dumas has also taken a number of initiatives that resulted in the completion and inauguration of memorials:
A statue was erected in 1912 in Paris, but was destroyed by the Nazis during World War II. In 2002, following the request of Claude Ribbe, the council of Paris unanimously voted to install a replacement for the vandalized monument, in the General Catroux square in Paris.
On the 26th of February 2006, to mark the bicentenary of the death of General Dumas, the Association des Amis du Général Dumas installed a plaque in Villers-Côtterets, on the front of the house where General Dumas died. The plate was then designated as a site of memory for the annual commemoration of slavery on the 10th of May.
This commemoration has been celebrated each year from 2006. Although this tradition has been maintained for 8 consecutive years, the new FN mayor, Franck Briffaut, announced in 2014 that he wanted to break with this tradition. In response, the Association des Amis du Général Dumas made a statement on 24 April 2014 annoucing that it would take over the organisation of the commemoration.
At the initiative of the Amis du Général Dumas, a sculpture in memory of the General Dulas called “Fers” (Irons) was also inaugurated by Bertrand Delanoë on the 9th of April 2009, Place Malesherbes in Paris. Created by by Driss Sans-Arcidet, it evokes slavery through the representation of huge broken shackles.
Source: website of the Association des Amis du Général Dumas, and website of Claude Ribbe
- To spread the history of the life of the General Thomas-Alexandre Davy de La Pailleterie, known as Alexandre Dumas (1762-1806), emblematic figure descended from slavery, Republican general of African descent by his mother, born a slave in Saint- Domingue (Republic of Haiti), dead a free man in Villers-Côtterets (Aisne).
- To honour and defend his memory, particularly with regard to its African origins and his condition of slave in his youth
- To honour and defend the memory of his family: parents, children or collaterals