The insurrection was openly declared as a war to the death against whites.

Evidence

On the night of August 21 the manager of La Gossette, Pierre Mossut, was awakened by a group of slaves who announced that they were “coming to talk to him” and who then attacked him. Mossut was wounded in the arm but fought back and managed to escape. He sent word to the main Gallifet plantation, and soon Odeluc and several other whites arrived at La Gossette. The next morning, accompanied by a judge from Le Cap, they interrogated slaves and extracted a worrisome confession: there was a plan afoot to start “a war to the death against the whites.” The slave overseer of the plantation, Blaise, was identified as one of the ringleaders. Blaise, however, was nowhere to be found. — Dubois, Laurent, Avengers of the New World_ The Story of…, 317