Visible 12 1/2 x 16 1/8 in. letterpress broadside (toning, a few pinholes to upper left); framed to 16 1/2 x 19 in. (not examined out of frame). Signed in type by Polverel and Sonthonax. 

A proclamation issued in Le Cap, Saint-Domingue (now Cap-Haïtien, Haiti) by the French Civil Commissioners Étienne Polverel and Léger-Félicité Sonthonax, who had been sent by the Republic in response to the slave uprising and Haitian Revolution. Despite both men being abolitionists, their mission was not to abolish slavery but to give all free men, regardless of their color, equality of rights guaranteed to them by the decree of 4 April 1792. This was, however, reversed on 29 August 1793 when Sonthonax abolished enslavement in the northern province. Polverel followed suit in the western and southern provinces. This broadside advertises declarations made by the Commissioners regarding property abandoned by citizens who fled the Colony that will duly become property of the Republic.