Africanus Horton | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Born | James Beale Horton c. 1835 |
| Died | c. 1883 (aged 47–48) Freetown, Sierra Leone |
| Alma mater | King's College London University of Edinburgh |
| Military career | |
| Allegiance |  British Empire |
| Service |  British Army |
| Rank | Surgeon-Major |
| Unit | West India Regiments Army Medical Staff |
| Battles / wars | Anglo-Ashanti wars |
| Occupation(s) | Army officer, surgeon, writer, banker |
| Spouses |
Selina Beatrice Elliott
(m. 1875) |
Surgeon-Major James Africanus Beale Horton (c. 1835 – c. 1883) was a British Army officer, surgeon, writer and banker. Born in Gloucester, Sierra Leone into a Creole family who were liberated from enslavement by the Royal Navy, he began attending the SLGS in 1845. After graduating from Fourah Bay College, Horton received a War Office scholarship study medicine in Britain to prepare him for a career in the British Armed Forces, and he attended King's College London and the University of Edinburgh. Serving in the West India Regiments, Horton was posted to various locations within the British Empire, including Lagos, the Gambia, Sierra Leone and the Gold Coast and participated in the Anglo-Ashanti wars.
Horton wrote extensively on the medicine and botany of West Africa, and espoused African nationalism and pan-Africanism in opposition to racism by European writers. In his works, including The Political Economy of British West Africa (1865) and West African Countries and Peoples (1868), he defended Africans against racist arguments and espoused self-governance for Britain's African colonies. After retiring from the army at the age of 45, Horton went to Freetown where he continued to campaign on political issues and opened a bank. His business activities and gold mining investments made him one of the wealthiest men in Africa by 1880, and Horton died three years later. A crater on Mercury is named in his honour.