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 that would later become the United States. 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 newssheet 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 the colony between Governor Edmund Andros and the Puritan hierarchy that the Anglican Andros' appointment had usurped.

What made Publick Occurrences different from New-English Affairs and the other Massachusetts broadsides was the fact that Publick Occurrences was dated. 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 newssheet 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 (of 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 the controversy that Publick Occurrences would create in Boston. 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 toward political issues. In 1679, the licensing of publications briefly ended in England, and Harris produced the country's first nongovernment-sanctioned paper, The Domestick Intelligence; Or, News both from City and Country. As a Baptist, Harris opposed the Catholic leanings of the Stuart 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' arrival in Boston coincided with the revocation of Massachusetts' Puritan Charter and Andros' political appointment. Civil unrest following the appointment and, in anger, Massachusetts citizens revolted and removed Andros from office and threw him in jail. For a short time, the colony lacked any strong leadership. It was during this political void that Harris decided to produce Publick Occurrences.

With Publick Occurrences, Harris 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.”

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