Chatoyer writes to French estate owners in the language of liberty

On 12 March 1795 Joseph Chatoyer circulated a proclamation in French among the estate owners living on St Vincent. It opens with a question. Is there a Frenchman who would hold back at the hour when liberty is being spoken aloud? It asks its readers to gather as citizens and brothers under the colours already flying on the island. The second half sets out what refusal costs. Anyone not assembled with the Caribs by the end of the day would be treated as a traitor to the country, their estates burned and their families killed. The document ends with Chatoyer’s own mark in place of a signature. The figure does not appear to follow any European convention. It appears to draw on the rock carvings of St Vincent. It survives in the British colonial records. Within days plantations were burning, and the Caribs had allies among French settlers, enslaved people and troops sent from Guadeloupe by Victor Hugues.