Today we’re doing something a little different and will be looking at an odd historic figure who pioneered the whole “Americans visiting Afghanistan for fun or profit” thing. Josiah Harlan was born a Quaker and eventually became an Afghani warlord and prince.

Josiah Harlan was the first American in Afghanistan and during his time in country became a general and a prince. Afghanistan in the 1800s is synonymous with Britain and Russia playing the “Great Game,” their attempt to conquer or control central Asia, but before either nation’s armies set foot in the country the American led Afghan armies as he rose to power playing a personal “Great Game.” Being neither Russian nor British and serving an Afghani ruler, he became a minor footnote to history and for the most part has been forgotten. His exploits are better known by Rudyard Kipling’s parody of them in “The Man Who Would Be King.”

Harlan was born in 1799 to Pennsylvania Quaker parents. He sailed to India in 1822 and convinced the British East India Company to hire him as a surgeon despite having no prior formal medical training or experience. He served them in the First Burma War but left under “ambiguous circumstances” at the war’s end in 1826.

His East India Company experience served as the preamble to his strange tale. He moved to the Indian border town of Ludhiana, which was the home of Shah Shujah-ul-Mulk, a deposed Afghani king who had lost power to Dost Mohammed Khan. The adventurer found favor with the shah and proposed to bring him back to power. Harlan would start a rebellion against Khan using a combined force of Muslims, Hindus and Sikhs. When the shah returned to power Harlan would be made vizier. Unfortunately for him this campaign did not end well as he found “the Khan’s position unassailable.”

After his first failed venture Harlan served the Sikh leader Maharajah Ranjeet Singh for seven years. This particular phase of his story began inauspiciously as it started with his capture by Singh’s troops. His boldness and talents impressed Singh who made him Governor of Nurpur and Jasota, and then he was given control of the Punjabi province of Gujerat. As improbable as the tale seemed it was confirmed by a British missionary who met Governor Harlan while on a mission to ascertain the fate of missing British agents.

He was heavily involved with the Sikh battle to take Peshawar and the 1834 war with Dost Mohammed Khan. Harlan engineered and carried out a plot of bribery and deception involving the Sikhs, Khan and the Khan’s estranged brother that helped maintain Sikh control of the city.

After leaving Singh’s service, again under “ambiguous circumstances,” but this time involving the desire for revenge, he offered his services to Dost Mohammed Khan. This was the same Dost Mohammed Khan he’d duped and plotted against for more than seven years. General Harlan trained the army that Khan’s son would lead to victory over Singh in 1837. It was while serving Khan, Harlan was made royalty by the Hazarans in exchange for creating “an invincible army.”

Britain and Russia began getting involved with Afghanistan during this time. Khan and his agent Harlan attempted to manipulate British envoys which in turn further entangled them in imperial machinations. Britain decided to remove Khan from power and invaded in 1839 while Harlan was away from Kabul with his “invincible army” on a successful punitive expedition into the Hindu Kush.

Britain marched on Kabul under the pretense of driving out Russian influence and restoring Harlan’s first Afghan connection, Shah Shujah-ul-Mulk, to power. Khan made Harlan Commander-in-Chief of all Afghani forces but there was no army to lead as he’d lost tribal support and most of his army had switched sides. Khan fled, Kabul was taken and Harlan, who’d no love for Britain or its imperial aims, was out of a job. He left Afghanistan and after a circuitous trip returned to Pennsylvania in 1841.

Harlan spent his time in America trying to find ways to drum up support for Afghani ventures, all of which failed. Colonel Harlan later led Harlan’s Light Cavalry during the Civil War. “Dr.” Harlan returned to his first career as a surgeon and practiced medicine in San Francisco until his death in 1871.

Afghanistan imagery courtesy of Rico Danan.