Joseph Howe and Edward Jordon : loyalty, press freedom, and reform in 1830s Nova Scotia and Jamaica

Abstract

This is a comparative study of two journalists in Nova Scotia and Jamaica respectively in the 1830s. As editors of colonial newspapers, Joseph Howe (1804-73) and Edward Jordon (1800-69) were tried for publishing seditious writings. Both were acquitted, however, in part due to their rhetoric of loyalty to Britain. Such rhetoric undermined the charges of sedition made against them and allowed them to contrast their loyalty with the apparent disloyalty of colonial elites. It also shows their place within a transatlantic network of reform. These journalists expertly manoeuvred through the complex divisions of power in Britain’s Atlantic Empire, yet their success was also contingent on their powerful position within their respective societies. In the twentieth century, Howe and Jordon were remembered for their combination of loyalty and advocacy for reform. However, this remembrance changed and faded as the British Empire receded.