Africanus Horton -- Sierra Leone

Africanus Horton, also known as James Beale, was an African nationalist writer and an esteemed Medical Surgeon in the British Army from Freetown, Sierra Leone. Horton was also a scientist, and a political thinker who worked toward African independence a century before it occurred.  In his varied career, he served as a physician, an officer in the British Army, a banker, and a mining entrepreneur.

Born as James Beale Horton, the son of an Igbo liberated slave, he was educated at the CMS Grammar School and at the Fourah Bay Institution.  He was selected by the CMS to study medicine in preparation for a medical officer position in the British army.  In 1853, he received a War Office scholarship to study medicine in Great Britain. He studied at King's College London and Edinburgh University, qualifying as a medical doctor in 1859. While a student, he took the name "Africanus" as an emblem of pride in his African homeland.

In 1859 Horton was commissioned back to West Africa as staff-assistant surgeon in the British army.  During his career as a medical officer, Horton served in two Ashanti wars (1863 and 1873).  His experiences led him to correlate topography and human health, developing theories that earn him a reputation in the medical world and a promotion to the army rank of surgeon-major.

In addition, he wrote a number of books and essays, the most widely remembered was his 1868 Vindication of the African Race, an answer to the white racist authors emerging in Europe.  Horton challenged the prevalent notions of the racial inferiority of Africans and also put forward several proposals for African governance of different national and ethnic groups.  His philosophies, radical at the time when colonial powers were dominant, have acted as a basis for future development of African independence and nationalist ideologies.

Africanus Horton retired to Freetown where he continued to promote African education as being key to governance, and he provided scholarships to hopeful young Africans.  Horton took a keen interest in the technical and economic development of Africa, opening a bank to finance local entrepreneurs and putting forward proposals for gold mining and railway construction in Ghana.  

His business activities and gold mining investments made him one of the wealthiest men in Africa by 1880.  James Africanus Beale Horton died in Freetown, Sierra Leone in 1883.  He is often seen as one of the founders of African nationalism, one of his books was titled West African Countries and Peoples, and there is a crater on Mercury named after him.