Edward James Roye was born into a prosperous African American family in Newark, Ohio. His father, John Roye, managed a ferry across the Wabash River at Terre Haute, Indiana and acquired considerable land in Terre Haute as well as Vandalia in the neighboring state of Illinois. As a result of the family's financial standing, young Edward was able to attend Ohio University in neighboring Athens, Ohio. In 1836, upon the premature death of his father, Roye relocated to Terre Haute.

In 1846, attracted by the American Colonization Society, Roye immigrated to Liberia and set up business as a merchant. Within three years of his arrival, he became active in Liberian politics. Before being elected president he served as Speaker of the Liberian House of Representatives and Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Liberia.

Roye was inaugurated as the fifth President of Liberia on January 3, 1870. As Roye took office, the country was in the midst of political instability exacerbated by a fiscal crisis. Roye began a program of reconstruction with the intention to build new roads and schools. In order to raise the funds for these projects, Roye sailed to England where he began negotiations with London banks. Because of increasing world competition, Liberia was unable to generate sufficient export revenue, and defaulted on the loan negotiated by Roye . Recession forced Liberia into a series of ever larger loans. The decline of Liberia's exports and its inability to pay its debts resulted in a large measure of foreign interference.

Roye was deposed in 1871 in the first coup d'état in Africa's Oldest Republic. He died a mysterious death in Monrovia in early 1872.