James Africanus Beale Horton (1835-1883) - A West African Army Doctor's Strategies of Self- Legitimisation

This article examines the interconnections between medical science and poli- tics on the eve of the advent of colonial rule on the West African coast by means of the example of James Africanus Beale Horton (1835-1883), one of the first West Africans to receive medical training in Britain and to serve as a medical officer in the British Army. As he is known today as a political author, Horton's scientific work has hitherto been largely neglected in the historiogra- phy. His work as a medical officer and his research as an ambitious medical sci- entist allowed him to develop elaborate proposals for hygiene policy reforms. Furthermore, angered by emerging European race theories, he set out to re- fute prejudices against Africans and to draft self-governing West African states. This article seeks to demonstrate how scientific research helped a mid-nineteenth-century African scholar legitimise himself as an authoritative doctor and situate himself within European political and academic paradigms.