James Africanus Beale Horton As a Nineteenth Century African Social Theorist: The Fante Confederation and the Struggle Against Feudalism As a Case Study

James Africanus Beale Horton (1835 – 1883) is a nineteenth century West-African intellectual who is today best known for his critique of Victorian race science. This paper shows that Horton was also an important African social theorist. I argue that in the course of defending the Fante Confederation, which was formed in 1868, Horton provides an interesting analysis of the social structure of the societies of the interior of the Gold Coast region. Of special interest is his use of “feudalism” as an analytic concept. I argue that by describing the social structure of the “tribes” of the interior of the Gold Coast in the nineteenth century as feudal, Horton is indicating that in fact the “interior tribes” were not primitive in the sense that they had not advanced through any stages of history. Thus, he was responding to nineteenth century social theories and philosophies of history which relegated African societies to a primitive stage of social development. In eighteenth century and nineteenth century philosophies of history, feudalism was an advanced stage. It was the stage which preceded modern capitalist societies in many nineteenth century accounts of the history of social development. Horton, in describing the political organization of the “interior tribes” as feudal, is in fact arguing against racist assumptions insofar as he is implicitly arguing that far from having not experienced any kind of development, their political structure was not different in kind from that which obtained in France up to the French Revolution. Horton, in fact, accuses the British of conspiring to maintain this feudal order. Thus, he accuses British colonialism of being an anti-modernizing force in the Gold Coast region.