Publick Occurrences
Although it appeared only once, on September 25, 1690, Publick Occurrences, Both Forreign and Domestick is considered the first newspaper published in the British-American colonies. Publick Occurrences, published in Boston, consisted of three pages of information (approximately 7½ inches by 11½ inches in size) followed by a blank fourth, which the publication’s prospectus intimated was left blank so that people who had more news or more accurate information could add it to the paper and then pass it on.
Publick Occurrences was not the first news publication to appear in Boston. Beginning in 1667 a series of one-time broadsheets appeared in Massachusetts, mostly related to European events that were considered to be of significance to colonials. In 1689 printer Samuel Green Jr. (1615–1702) produced The Present State of the New-English Affairs. This broadside dealt with the political power struggle that was taking place in Massachusetts between Governor Edmund Andros and the Puritan hierarchy that the Anglican Andros’s appointment had usurped.
What made Publick Occurrences different from New-English Affairs and the other Massachusetts broadsides was that Publick Occurrences was intended to be a regularly published newspaper, not a one-time printed sheet. In the top left corner of the front page, “Numb. 1” appeared, meaning that the paper’s printer, Benjamin Harris (c. 1647–1720), intended for his publication to appear at regular intervals as newspapers did in England. Harris reaffirmed this idea in the opening sentence of the paper’s prospectus: “It is designed, that the Countrey shall be furnished once a moneth (or if any Glut of Occurrences happen, oftener,) with an account of such considerable things as have arrived unto our Notice.”
Harris was no stranger to newspapers nor to controversy. In the 1670s and 1680s he began printing pamphlets and tracts for religious dissenters in England. Religion and politics were firmly entwined, and Harris soon turned his attention to political issues. In 1679 the licensing of publications briefly ended in England, and Harris produced an unlicensed newspaper called The Domestick Intelligence; or, News both from City and Country. As a Baptist, Harris opposed the Catholic leanings of the Stuart king Charles II as well as the Anglican Church. Because he was so outspoken in his opposition to the king, Harris was jailed twice. When he was arrested a third time in 1685 following the reinstitution of licensing, Harris fled to the Netherlands. A year later he came to America and immediately set up a printing business.
Harris’s arrival in Boston coincided with the revocation of Massachusetts’s Puritan Charter and Andros’s political appointment. Civil unrest followed the appointment and, in anger, Massachusetts citizens revolted, removed Andros from office, and threw him in jail. For a short time the colony lacked strong leadership. It was during this period that Harris decided to produce Publick Occurrences. With the newspaper he hoped to reestablish order and trust within the colony. By providing a regular and reliable information source, the paper’s prospectus said, “people every where may better understand the Circumstances of Publique Affairs.” In addition, Harris hoped that a reliable news source would also prevent the “many False Reports, maliciously made, and spread among us.”
Harris also believed that the newspaper had a divine purpose. He said that Publick Occurrences would provide news so “That Memorable Occurrents of Divine Providence may not be neglected or forgotten.” To that end, the newspaper carried stories of “Christianized Indians” who had established “a day of Thanksgiving to God for his Mercy in supplying their extream and pinching Necessities,” and he noted that if the colonies fared well in their current conflict with the French in Canada that “God alone will have all the Glory.” News in the paper also informed readers of a fire that destroyed approximately 20 houses, and it described a smallpox epidemic spreading through Boston. “Tis not easy to relate the Trouble and Sorrow that poor Boston has felt by this Epidemical Contagion,” the paper said.
The paper’s commentary surrounding the conflict between England and France, called King William’s War by the colonists, ultimately led to the suppression of Publick Occurrences. Harris told of a ship seized by the French and Native Americans. They “Butchered the Master, and several of the men” on board, the paper reported. In addition, Publick Occurrences told how colonial forces “cut the faces, and ript the bellies of two Indians, and threw a third Over board in the sight of the French.” He complained that colonial officials provided the Mohawks with too much information about colonial military activities. Harris also mentioned that King Louis XIV of France was rumored to be having sexual relations with his “Sons Wife.”
Despite the fact that Massachusetts lacked strong political leadership, a Governor’s Council still existed, and on September 29 it ordered Harris never again to publish Publick Occurrences or any other newspaper in the colony. The decree stated that the newspaper contained “Reflections of a very high nature,” and it forbade the printing of any newspaper in the future “without License first obtained from those that are or shall be appointed by the Government to grant the same.” The council was simply following a 1686 English law, which prohibited the printing of anything in the colonies without “especial leave and license first obtained.” The injunction against Publick Occurrences called into question the accuracy of the paper’s information, as it was obvious that Harris portrayed the government as powerless to stop French and Native American encroachment in the colony’s northernmost regions. Later correspondence from one council member revealed that because Harris chose to publish his paper without authority, complained about dealing with the Mohawks, and disparaged the French king, he raised the council’s ire. Despite the fact that England and France were at war, references to royalty and sexual indiscretions were too much for the Puritan council members.
Harris complied with the council’s ruling and printed no more newspapers, but he did print a news pamphlet in 1692, the same year he was named the colony’s official printer. Harris returned to England in 1695 and resumed newspaper publication in 1699 with the London Post. All copies of Publick Occurrences were ordered called in. A single copy is known to exist in London.
The original version of this article was published by SAGE Publications in The SAGE Encyclopedia of Journalism.