The explosion of the Revolution found the populous Greek element of Chios prospering (117,000 against 3,000 Ottoman Turks and 100 Jews). With their fleet, their commercial acumen and their diplomacy, the Chians dominated the Black Sea, the Aegean and the Mediterranean. This fact prompted the Sultan to grant the island many privileges, bordering on the status of autonomy.
Thus, the ruling classes of Chios had no reason to rise up against the Turks. The failure of Tobazi in April 1821 testifies to this. The local procurators also had a serious excuse for opposing the uprising: Chios is located almost two miles from the Asia Minor mainland, so any attempt at rebellion was doomed to failure.
On 10 March 1822, Samios Lykourgos Logothetis, at the urging of the Chios native Antonios Bournias, landed on the island with 1,500 men and succeeded in rousing the locals, mainly the rural inhabitants. The 3,000 Turks on the island managed to barricade themselves in the castle and their siege of a few days did not have any significant effect, as Logothetis' men were poorly equipped.
Vice Admiral Kara-Ali PashaOnce the news of the rebellion reached the High Gate, Sultan Mahmut II took it as ingratitude on the part of the Chians, and also as a personal insult, because his sister was reaping from the island the tax from the mastic trees. Enraged, he immediately ordered all the Chians of Constantinople to be imprisoned and sixty of them be beheaded. He then gave the order to Vice Admiral Kara-Ali Pasha to sail to the island and punish the rebels in an exemplary manner.
On March 30, 1822, after intense cannonading, Kara-Ali landed on shore 7.000 men and with the assistance of the Turkish garrison easily and quickly suppressed the rebellion, taking advantage of its poor planning and the leadership disputes between Bournias and Logothetis. He then set fire to all the outskirts and the capital of the island and engaged in unheard of massacres. It is estimated that of the 117,000 Christian inhabitants of the island, 42,000 were slaughtered, 50,000 were taken prisoner and 23,000 fled to the rebellious regions of Greece and Western Europe. The Turks lost about 600 men, and casualties were reported among the Jews who were transported from the Asia Minor coast to the island to loot and supervise the slave trade.
The bloody events of Chios caused an alarming impression in Europe. Public opinion was aroused and the ranks of the Philhellenes thickened. Eyewitnesses described the gruesome scenes in the newspapers, painters (Delacroix) depicted them and poets (Hugo, Hemans, Pierpont, Hill, Sigourney) sang of the sad catastrophe. Many spoke of the incompatibility of the Turkish race with humanism, while others stressed the impossibility of coexistence between Christians and Muslims. The Greek nemesis would soon come, with the blowing up of the Turkish flagship Kara-Ali by Constantine Kanaris (6 - 7 June 1822).
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