Anne-Alexandre, known as Pétion, was born at Port-au-Prince, a quarteron whose white father, Pascal Sabès, would not give him his name.

Anne-Alexandre, known under the name of Pétion, saw the light of day in Port-au-Prince, in rue de la Révolution, then rue d’Orléans (1), on Monday 2 April 1770; and by a most happy omen, that day was the anniversary of the feast of Saint Vincent de Paul, so celebrated for his devotion to humanity. He was born of the natural union of M. Pascal Sabès, a white man, and of Dame Ursule, a *mulâtresse*. Although he was a *quarteron*, a kind of *sang-mêlé* whose skin is ordinarily white, he came into the world so black that with his straight hair he could have been taken for an Indian. Dame Ursule was already the mother of a daughter named Suzanne, better known by the diminutive Sanite, whose figure contrasted with the ebony of her brother. This phenomenon of cutaneous variation among *quarterons* often recurs. But M. Sabès did not account for it. Thus it is claimed that the black skin of the newborn made him doubt his paternity, and that he refused to give him his name (1). However that may be, Anne-Alexandre, though still very young, gave glimpses of all that he was one day to be. His education was not a careful one. Who could be ignorant that in the schools of the colonies *mulâtres* and Black people were taught only barely to read? These men are therefore all the more worthy of admiration when we see them, by their own efforts, break every fetter, rise and grow to the astonishment of all. Alexandre, among so many others, deserves our homage above all. He was one of those privileged children whom nature prepares for her joy, and brings into the world for the glory of her power. Like those figures beyond the ordinary which one meets at intervals in the march of the ages, to light the road of humanity, he was destined, more than any other, and of himself, to grow and to rise in protest against the injustice of the prejudices under whose yoke colonial despotism had so long bowed the colored population of America. Marcellus is born, but this time Marcellus will not die.