On March 30, 1822, Ottoman forces descended on Chios with direct orders from the Sultan. Greek Christian men were to be ...

On March 30, 1822, Ottoman forces descended on Chios with direct orders from the Sultan. Greek Christian men were to be killed outright. Women between 12 and 40 and boys between 3 and 12 were to be taken alive, bound for the slave markets of Smyrna and Constantinople. What followed was one of the most documented atrocities of the 19th century. Young girls were raped in the streets. Pregnant women were killed and their unborn children torn from them. Women over 40 were burned alive. Children were thrown against rocks. Men who tried to defend their families were mutilated and slaughtered. Some women chose to jump from cliffs rather than be taken captive. Ottoman soldiers hanged bodies from trees across the island as a warning. Severed limbs covered the roads. The sea around Chios turned red. Fires burned so intensely that night looked like day across the entire island. By May 1, 1822, over 41,000 slave ownership documents, called teskerés, had been issued on Chios alone. By May 10, customs duties on 40,000 slaves had already been processed at Smyrna. A priest from the British embassy in Constantinople witnessed the markets directly and recorded that around 500 Chiot women were sold in a fish market, examined and bought for as little as 100 grosia a head. The scale of the horror reached every European capital. The French press covered it for weeks. Eugène Delacroix painted "Scenes from the Massacres of Scio," which still hangs in the Louvre today. Victor Hugo wrote his poem "The Greek Child" in response. American sculptor Hiram Powers carved "The Greek Slave" roughly two decades later, depicting a young woman, nude, chained, holding a small cross. Powers described her as a girl taken from the Greek islands, her family exterminated, now standing before strangers who view her with contempt, sustained only by her faith in God. The Massacre of Chios killed tens of thousands and enslaved tens of thousands more. It was not forgotten. #Chios #GreekHistory #NeverForget