MEDICAL IMPERIALISM AND INDIGENOUS KNOWLEDGE IN EPIDEMIC CONTROL: LESSONS FROM THE BUBONIC PLAGUE IN COLONIAL LAGOS (1924–1931) FOR CONTEMPORARY PUBLIC HEALTH GOVERNANCE

Abstract

This article examines the bubonic plague outbreak in colonial Lagos (1924–1931) through the intersecting frameworks of medical imperialism, cultural trust, and indigenous knowledge systems in epidemic control. It argues that colonial public health interventions, grounded in Eurocentric biomedical rationalities, were constrained not only by limited epidemiological effectiveness but also by failures of cultural recognition and legitimacy. By privileging coercive sanitary regimes such as quarantine enforcement, port surveillance, forced disinfection, and spatial segregation, colonial authorities systematically marginalised indigenous healing practices and community-based health responses central to local understandings of disease causation and care. Drawing on colonial medical reports, administrative archives, vernacular newspapers such as Eleti-Ofe, and secondary historical scholarship, the study reconstructs the plurality of responses to the plague. These include ethnomedical treatments, herbal pharmacology, spiritual healing practices, and religious coping strategies across Christian, Muslim, and traditional belief systems. It also shows that resistance to colonial health measures was not merely non-compliance, but was rooted in distrust produced by cultural insensitivity, disruption of burial rites, and coercive medical governance. Colonial public health in Lagos functioned as a form of biopolitical control regulating African bodies and urban space while failing to achieve sustained epidemic containment, as reflected in persistently high mortality rates and recurring outbreaks. By recovering indigenous health interventions as rational and adaptive responses, this article challenges historiographies that privilege Western biomedicine as the dominant explanation for epidemic control. The article concludes by drawing contemporary relevance from this historical case, highlighting the enduring importance of cultural trust, epistemic inclusion, and community engagement in pandemic governance. It argues that neglect of cultural context in health systems historically and in contemporary global health crises, continues to shape mistrust, resistance, and unequal health outcomes.