John Duncan

Born in 1805, John Duncan was a Scottish traveler and writer best known for his journeys in West Africa. He served in the British Army before turning his experiences abroad into books for a wider audience.

He is most closely associated with travels in what is now Benin and surrounding regions during the mid-1840s. His best-known work, Travels in Western Africa, in 1845 & 1846, records a journey from Whydah through the kingdom of Dahomey and into the interior, giving readers a detailed picture of the landscapes, courts, and customs he encountered.

Duncan died in 1849. Though not a major literary figure in the usual sense, he remains of interest as a nineteenth-century eyewitness whose travel writing preserves a contemporary European view of West Africa during a period of intense imperial curiosity and expanding contact.