A print depicting Archibald Dalzel, the governor or Cape Coast Castle.

Archibald Dalzel (1740–circa 1811) was born in Kirkliston in Scotland. He studied medicine at Edinburgh University and served in the Royal Navy as a surgeon during the Seven Years’ War (1756–63). When he was discharged in 1763, he accepted a position as a surgeon in the Company of Merchants Trading to Africa, and was stationed at Anomabu on the Gold Coast. While in West Africa he began slave trading. He was director of the British fort at Ouidah from 1767 to 1770, and then concentrated on slave trading until he was declared bankrupt in 1778. Dalzel was active in the campaign opposing abolition. In 1791 he became governor of Cape Coast Castle, and soon afterwards published his History of Dahomy (London, 1793). The book, which was used by anti-abolitionists, argued that the slave trade benefited Africans and defended Europeans from the charge that they incited wars in Africa. His brother, the classical scholar Andrew Dalzel (1742–1806), was a prominent opponent of slavery.