The article was taken largely from the Wikipedia article about Josiah Harlan.

Josiah Harlan was an American adventurer, best known for travelling to Afghanistan and Punjab with the intention of making himself a king. While there, he became involved in local politics and factional military actions, eventually winning the title Prince of Ghor in perpetuity for himself and his descendants in exchange for military aid. Rudyard Kipling’s short story The Man Who Would Be King is believed to be partly based on Harlan. In turn, the Kipling short story was the basis for the 1975 movie The Man Who Would Be King starring Sean Connery and Michael Caine. Harlan died on October 12, 1871, in San Francisco, California.

Josiah Harlan was born 12 June 1799 in Newlin Township in Chester County, Pennsylvania to Josiah and Sarah (Hinchman) Harlan. He was the great-grandson of Michael and Dinah (Dixon) Harlan. Josiah Harlan was. His parents were Quakers, and Josiah and his nine siblings were raised in a strict and pious home. His father was a merchant broker in Philadelphia and several of his sons would later enter the merchant business.

In 1820, Harlan embarked on his first travels. His father secured him a job as supercargo on a merchant ship bound for the East, sailing to Calcutta, India, then Guangzhou, China and back. In July 1824, without any formal education, he enlisted as a surgeon with the British East India Company and participated in the Company’s war in Burma.

In the summer of 1826, he left their service. As a civilian, he was granted a permit to stay in India by the Governor General Lord Amherst. He entered the service of Ranjit Singh, the Maharaja of Punjab. Here he met the exiled Afghan ruler Shuja Shah Durrani of the Durrani Empire and eventually entered his service. With financial support from Shuja Shah Durrani, Harlan travelled along the Indus and into Afghanistan, first to Peshawar then to Kabul. He met in Kabul the man who he had come to depose, Dost Mohammad Khan.

Harlan came to Lahore, the capital of Punjab, in 1829. In December 1829, he was instated as Governor of Nurpur and Jasrota, described by Harlan himself as two districts then newly subjugated by the King in Lahore, located on the skirt of the Himalah Mountains.

In 1838, Harlan set off on a punitive expedition against the Uzbek slave trader and warlord Murad Beg. He had multiple reasons for doing this: he wanted to help Dost Mohammad assert his authority outside of Kabul; he had a deep-seated opposition to slavery and he wanted to demonstrate that a modern army could successfully cross the Hindu Kush. Taking a force of approximately 1,400 cavalry, 1,100 infantry, 1,500 support personnel and camp followers, 2,000 horses, 400 camels and one elephant, Harlan thought of himself as a modern-day Alexander the Great. He was accompanied by a younger son and a secretary of Dost Mohammad. Dost Mohammad sought to collect tribute from the Hazara who were willing if the Afghans also ended Murad Beg’s raids.

After an arduous journey (which included an American flag-raising ceremony at the top of the Indian Caucasus), Harlan reinforced his army with local Hazaras, most of whom lived in fear of the slave traders. His first major military engagement was a short siege at the Citadel of Saighan, controlled by a Tajik slave-trader. Harlan’s artillery made short work of the fortress. As a result of this performance, local powers clamored to become Harlan’s friends.

One of the most powerful and ambitious local rulers was Mohammad Reffee Beg Hazara, a prince of Ghor, an area in the central and western part of what is now the country of Afghanistan. He and his retinue feasted for ten days with Harlan’s force, during which time they observed the remarkable discipline and organization of the modern army. They invited the American back to Reffee’s mountain stronghold. Harlan was amazed by the working feudal system. He admired the Hazaras both because of the absence of slavery in their culture (unusual in that region at the time) and by the gender equality he observed. At the end of Harlan’s visit, he and Reffee came to an agreement. Harlan and his heirs would be the Prince of Ghor in perpetuity, with Reffee as his vizier. In return, Harlan would raise and train an army with the ultimate goal of solidifying and expanding Ghor’s autonomy. However, when Harlan returned to Kabul the British forces accompanying William Hay Macnaghten arrived to occupy the city in an early stage of the First Anglo-Afghan War. Harlan, who was not an admirer of the British, quickly became a persona non grata and after some further travel returned to the US.