 He was the first person of color in the French military to become brigadier general, the first to become divisional general, and the first to become general-in-chief of a French army.Dumas and Toussaint Louverture (appointed a general-in-chief in 1797) were the two highest-ranking officers of sub-Saharan African descent in the Western world until 1975, when "Chappie" James achieved the equivalent rank of four-star general in the United States Air Force.Born in Saint-Domingue, Thomas-Alexandre was the son of the Marquis Alexandre Antoine Davy de la Pailleterie, a white French nobleman and Marie-Cessette Dumas, an enslaved woman of African descent.