1724-00-00: (The First Newspaper Published in Haiti, the Beginning of a Print Culture That Would Remain Confined to the French-Speaking Elite for Over Two Ce…

1724-00-00: (The First Newspaper Published in Haiti, the Beginning of a Print Culture That Would Remain Confined to the French-Speaking Elite for Over Two Centuries): In 1724, the first newspaper was published in Haiti, establishing a print culture in the colony that would serve the French-speaking enslavers and the colonial administration. The newspaper was written in French, the language of the colonizers, and its audience was the literate minority of whites and wealthy mulattos who constituted the colonial elite. The enslaved majority, who spoke the emerging Kreyòl language and were forbidden from learning to read, had no access to print. This linguistic divide, between a French-language public sphere accessible only to the elite and a Kreyòl-speaking majority excluded from it, would persist for over two centuries, surviving the Revolution, independence, and every subsequent political transformation until the 1987 constitution recognized Kreyòl as an official language.