Background
Edward Jordon was born in 1800, he was the son of a mulatto freedman from Barbados.
Edward Jordon was born in 1800, he was the son of a mulatto freedman from Barbados.
He was jailed for a short while in 1831 on charges of fomenting slave rebellion. However, he was elected to the Jamaican House of Assembly in 1835, three years before the formal end of slavery. He also served on the Kingston Common Council and, ultimately, became mayor of Kingston, serving for 12 years beginning in 1854. Jordan and a fellow mulatto, Robert Osborn, attempted to provide leadership for previously unrepresented brown and black Jamaicans, and together published a newspaper. The Watchman. Some critics accused Jordan of compromising too much with the white colonial establishment.