Colonial Jamaica The Crown Colony of Jamaica and Dependencies was a British colony from 1655, when it was captured by the English Protectorate from the Spanish Empire. Jamaica became a British colony from 1707 and a Crown colony in 1866. The Colony was pr ...

, during the 18th and 19th centuries, there were a number of newspapers that represented the views of the white planters who owned slaves. These newspapers included the ''Royal Gazette, The Diary and Kingston Daily Advertiser, Cornwall Chronicle, Cornwall Gazette'', and ''Jamaica Courant''. These newspapers often served parochial interests. ''The Diary and Kingston Advertiser'' served white residents in the city of Kingston and surrounding areas, while the ''Cornwall Chronicle'' and ''Cornwall Gazette'' catered to white planters and merchants in Montego Bay and surrounding areas. In 1826, two free coloureds, Edward Jordan and Robert Osborn, founded ''The Watchman'', which openly campaigned for the rights of free coloureds, and became Jamaica's first anti-slavery newspaper. In 1830, Jamaican colonial authorities arrested Jordan, the editor, and charged him with constructive t. However, Jordan was eventually acquitted, and became Mayor of

Kingston Kingston may refer to: Places * List of places called Kingston, including the five most populated: ** Kingston, Jamaica ** Kingston upon Hull, England ** City of Kingston, Victoria, Australia ** Kingston, Ontario, Canada ** Kingston upon Thames, ...

in post-Emancipation Jamaica. On the abolition of slavery in the 1830s, Gleaner Company was founded by two Jamaican Jewish brothers, Joshua and Jacob De Cordova. While the ''Gleaner'' represented the new establishment for the next century, there was a growing black nationalist movement that campaigned for increased political representation and rights in the early twentieth century. To this end, Osmond Theodore Fairclough founded ''Public Opinion'' in 1937. O.T. Fairclough was supported by radical journalists Frank Hill and H.P. Jacobs, and the first editorial of this new newspaper tried to galvanise public opinion around a new nationalism. Strongly aligned to the People's National Party (PNP), ''Public Opinion'' counted among its journalists progressive figures such as

Roger Mais Roger Mais (; 11 August 1905 – 21 June 1955) was a Jamaican journalist, novelist, poet, and playwright. He was born to a middle-class family in Kingston, Jamaica. By 1951, he had won ten first prizes in West Indian literary competitions.Ha ...

Una Marson Una Maud Victoria Marson (6 February 1905 – 6 May 1965) was a Jamaican feminist, activist and writer, producing poems, plays and radio programmes. She travelled to London in 1932 and became the first black woman to be employed by the BBC d ...

, Amy Bailey,

Louis Marriott Louis Marriott (22 May 1935 – 1 August 2016) was a Jamaican actor, director, writer, broadcaster, the executive officer of the Michael Manley Foundation, and member of the Performing Right Society, Jamaica Federation of Musicians, and founding ...

Peter Abrahams Peter Henry Abrahams Deras (3 March 1919 – 18 January 2017), commonly known as Peter Abrahams, was a South African-born novelist, journalist and political commentator who in 1956 settled in Jamaica, where he lived for the rest of his life. Hi ...

, and future prime minister Michael Manley, among others. While ''Public Opinion'' campaigned for self-government, British prime minister

Winston Churchill Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill (30 November 187424 January 1965) was a British statesman, soldier, and writer who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom twice, from 1940 to 1945 Winston Churchill in the Second World War, dur ...

made it known he had no intention of presiding "over the liquidation of the British Empire", and consequently the Jamaican nationalists in the PNP were disappointed with the watered-down constitution that was handed down to Jamaica in 1944. Mais wrote an article saying "Now we know why the draft of the new constitution has not been published before," because the underlings of Churchill were "all over the British Empire implementing the real imperial policy implicit in the statement by the Prime Minister". The British colonial police raided the offices of ''Public Opinion'', seized Mais's manuscript, arrested Mais himself, and convicted him of seditious libel, jailing him for six months. In the 1960s, Jamaican prime minister

Alexander Bustamante Sir William Alexander Clarke Bustamante (born William Alexander Clarke; 24 February 1884 – 6 August 1977) was a Jamaican politician and labour leader, who, in 1962, became the first prime minister of Jamaica. Early life and education He was ...

banned the flow of government advertising to ''Public Opinion'', and the newspaper eventually closed down a few years later.Walters, ''We Come From Jamaica'', pp. 70-73.

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* {{Jamaica topics * History of newspapers Cultural history of Jamaica

See also

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Bibliography