A rare survival: this is a supplement issue from the second newspaper printed on Saint-Domingue, Avis divers et petites affiches américaines.
After an abortive attempt by Metz bookseller, Joseph Payen, to establish a press on Saint-Domingue in 1723, printing didn’t truly get under way until the arrival of Antoine Marie from Nantes in late 1763. As official printer to the colony, his first ephemeral publications appeared in January 1764, though more substantial works appeared once he took over printing the Gazette de Saint-Domingue in February the same year. In September, the Gazette was renamed Avis divers et petites affiches américaines.
Like its predecessor, the Avis divers … was the official newspaper of the colony. Both were founded and edited by Jean Monceaux (1724–1768), who was an advocate at the Parlement de Paris and the Conseil Supérieur du Cap. Thirteen issues of Avis divers appeared in 1764, fifty-two in the next year, of which only nine were supplemented. In 1766 the newspaper was renamed again as Les Affiches Américaines and printed from January 1, 1766 until March 16, 1768. The constant changing of the titles was largely due to political pressure from the French government which disliked its independent tone, which only seemed to goad Monceaux, if the titles are anything to judge by, into strengthening his allegiance to Saint-Domingue.
Naturally enough, the journal’s content usually focussed on the island’s plantation economy, whose primary crops were sugar, coffee and indigo. however, the present Supplément … reviews the newly appointed governor-general, Charles Henri, comte d’Estaing’s, recently published Ordonannce général de Milices de S. Domingue (Ordonnance Portant Création D’un Corps de Troupes-Légeres, Désigné Sous le Nom de Premiere Légion de S. Domingue, Rendue Par M. Le Comte D’Estaing, Gouverneur-Général, &C. Le 15 Janvier 1765). It was a act to re-organise the colony’s militias, and had specific provisions for Creoles, free people of colour, and the white population.
Extremely scarce: we locate a single institutional copy at BnF (as part of a complete set of Monceaux’s journals).
“Brevet d’Imprimeur exclisif à Saint-Domingue. Du 31 Décembre 1762” in Loix et constitutions des Colonies françoises de l’Amerique sous le vent … Tome quatrieme (Paris, 1785) pp.533–534; Cabon, A., “Un siècle et demi de journalisme en Haïti (1919)” in Proceedings of the American Antiquarian Society, April 1939, pp. 123–124; Menier M. A., Debien G., “Journaux de Saint-Domingue” in Revue d’histoire des colonies. Vol. 36, No. 127–128, (1949) pp. 424–475; Jean Monceaux (1724–1768) in http://dictionnaire-journalistes.gazettes18e.fr - retrieved Oct. 30, 2019.