What Is Known About Julian Dumas
HISTORICAL BACKGROUND
The oldest known Dumas ancestor at this time [circa 2000] is Julian Dumas who came to Mexico in the l860's as a French soldier. At that time a cousin of Napoleon, calling himself Napoleon III, was interested in expanding French presence in the New World. The United States was preoccupied with its civil war between the North and the South and wasn't able to prevent foreign intrusions into Mexico. Mexico was in deep debt to Spain, England and France and the three of these nations elected to land armies on the Mexican mainland on the pretext of having to extract payment from Mexico by force. England and Spain saw early on that this approach was futile and removed their presence from Mexico. But, France wanted more than repayment of Mexico‘s debt. Their were interests in Mexico that felt a Monarchy would he welcomed by the majority of Mexicans and Napolean III felt that he could install a puppet emperor on the throne of Mexico with little resistance and thereby control the country.
A member of the Austrian royalty, Maximilian, was chosen for the position and soon arrived with his wife, Carlotta. French military were dispatched to all parts of the country and the Monarchy was generally accepted in the southern states of Mexico. The North was a different story however, there was much resistance to French control and the Monarchy and Napolean III's troops had to use force to instill their rule.
PIERRE JULIAN DUMAS
It was with this background that our Dumas relative arrived in Sonora, Mexico, a northern state. The Whole Mexican Republic was at War and a French "Pacific fleet” was sent to Sonora with French troops under General Castagny. On the 29th of March, 1865, the warships, "Lucifer", D'Assas", "Cordeliere" and "Pallas" arrived in Guaymas. The city was occupied and the troops in Guaymas were under Colonel Garnier. There is a strong possibility that Julian Dumas was one of those soldiers.
The French were not completely successful in pacifying all of Mexico, and little by little resentment toward the Monarchy grew among the masses. Napolean III eventually became disillusioned with the slow progress and the great expense‘ of "maintaining an army of occupation in Mexico. In addition, he was having"serious‘problems in Europe, and the United States had ended its civil war and was beginning to pressure France to depart from Mexico. Soon, in 1866, Napolean III removed his armies and navy and poor Maximilian was executed by firing squad.
Evidently, Julian Dumas decided Mexico was a better place for him to live than France. The chances are that he disappeared into the Sonora countryside when he was called by his army superiors to leave for Europe. There is little known about these circumstances. There is an account that says that Julian was thought to be lost in the line of duty and some say the records in Paris seem to indicate this. The story that comes to us through word of mouth is that Julian was a deserter. It is not known whether he deserted during battle or, more likely, that he just did not report when the call came to leave the Country. There may have been many such desertions.
What would have caused Julian to decide to stay in Mexico? One interesting account reaches us from Maximino Dumas, a grandson of Julian, who visited Paris with his wife Gladys several times in the 1960's. Max said that the Army records indicate, not only that Julian was listed as missing in the line of duty, but that he was in the Army per force. This speculation states that Julian was supposed to have been dallying with the wrong persons wife and was caught at it and was given the choice to go to jail or to join the Army. Its possible that if Julian had returned to Europe, he faced a jail term or worse. Another reason could have been
the possibilities for getting rich. The silver mines in Sonora were producing great amounts of good ore and some say Julian stayed to prospect for silver. No record of his being involved in such activity comes down to us.
It is generally agreed that Julian met his wife, Juana Uriarte, when he was in the employ of a wealthy rancher in Sinaloa. Juana was the daughter of the rancher and she was supposed to have been quite young when the two ran away together. Some accounts say she was twelve otheres say sixteen. What Julian did in the ranchers employ is not clear though some say that he was hired to safeguard rancher Uriarte‘s cattle from the Indians and that he headed up a band of men to accomplish this. It is also said that he new and was friendly with the Yaqui indians, although,
they ultimately killed him.
Julian and Juana settled in Guaymas, Sonora. There they started a family of three sons, Julian, Maximino and Cruz most likely born in the l87O‘s. At one time there was a Dumas family in Enpalme not far to the south from Guaymas. This family was rumored to be the illegitimate family of Julian or one of his sons.
Julian died when the children were still at home and Juana provided a living for the young family by operating a dairy and later a bakery. Her family had disinherited her when she ran away with Julian. Later, presumably after Julian's death, they recanted the disinheritance but Juana was too proud to go back to them or accept help from her family.
Where did Julian Dumas come from? Who are his ancestors? A granddaughter of Julian, Ana Berta Dumas de Manrique and her family lived in France for three years and researched Julian and were able to determine that he came from Marseilles, France but their the trail grows cold. There are many Dumases in Marseilles much like Smiths in the U.S. One possibility is that Marseilles is just the port of debarcation of the French naval vessel that brought Julian to Mexico.
