Royal Danish American
Daniel Thibou’s Gazette is the only known surviving newspaper printing of the Declaration of Independence in the Caribbean
On August 14, 1776, a ship from Philadelphia arrived in Christianstæd, the northeastern port on the island of St. Croix. The captain of the ship handed the latest newspapers over to Daniel Thibou, the printer of the Royal Danish American Gazette. The following Saturday, August 17, the Declaration of Independence was printed in English in a town named for a Danish king on an island with a history of French rule and a Spanish name given by Christopher Columbus.
Royal Danish American Gazette, August 17, 1776, p. 1, Royal Danish Library
St. Croix has been part of the U.S. Virgin Islands for over a century, but in 1776, it was a colony in the Danish West Indies. The masthead of Daniel Thibou’s newspaper had a crudely rendered coat of arms with the motto of Christian VII: GLORIA EX AMORE PATRIAE, or Glory through Love of the Fatherland. Christian VII was the King of Denmark and Norway and the grandson of Christian VI, for whom Christianstæd was named. St. Croix was an island filled with plantations, where the number of enslaved people far exceeded the number of free people. Christianstæd had a very small population but a lot of people regularly sailed in and out of the port.
“A compleat map of the West Indies containing the coasts of Florida, Louisiana, New Spain, and Terra Firma: With all the islands” (detail), London: Printed for R. Sayer, 1774, Library of Congress
When Daniel Thibou launched the Royal Danish American Gazette in July 1770, he decided to print it in English, though he occasionally included advertisements in Danish. Thibou featured more news from London and British North America than from Copenhagen or northern Europe. His gazette almost reads like an American newspaper—that is, in the United States—except the title claims it as royal and Danish.
Daniel Thibou printed the Declaration of Independence on the front page of his newspaper, prefaced by a note about the ship that had brought the news to St. Croix. He also included a report of the public reading of the Declaration in New York on July 9. On the last page of the Gazette, Thibou printed a lengthy piece called “The Confessions of Ignorance,” written by “A Briton.” This conversation between the characters of “Curiosity” and “Ignorance” was first printed in London, in the Public Advertiser, in November 1775. The subject of the conversation was the plight of the British colonists. At one point, “Curiosity” asked if John Hancock and Samuel Adams, “the Founders of the new Western Empire,” would be able to “provide the Colonists with a better model of government than that which they are about to sacrifice to the experiment” of independence. “Ignorance” responded, “Of that I am ignorant; but I should rather imagine NOT.”
Royal Danish American Gazette, August 17, 1776, p. 4, Royal Danish Library
The August 17 issue of the Royal Danish American Gazette is unusually long. Thibou typically printed news on the front and back of a single sheet. But the August 17 issue is four pages long. Thibou’s newspaper regularly included a number of advertisements, especially for sales of property and enslaved laborers, as well as notices of ships that would soon be departing for other ports. But, because Thibou printed both the Declaration and the “Confessions of Ignorance,” he ran out of space and had to tell his subscribers that any omitted advertisements would be in the following issue.
Royal Danish American Gazette, (Left) August 14, 1776, p. 1; (Right) August 21, p. 2; (Bottom) August 17, p. 4, Royal Danish Library
Daniel Thibou’s Gazette is the only known surviving newspaper printing of the Declaration of Independence in the Caribbean. But that does not mean that the news of independence was unimportant or unacknowledged there. From ship captains to plantation owners, people on St. Croix and other Caribbean islands were paying close attention to what was happening in Philadelphia.
Where to See It Online: Royal Danish Library
