CHAPTER 12


SLAVES INTO SOLDIERS: SOCIAL ORIGINS OF THE
TIRAILLEURS SENEGALAIS
Myron Echenberg
The origins of France's colonial army in West Africa are
commonly dated from the creation of the Tirailleurs Senegalais
by Governor Louis Faidherbe in 1857 (Boisboissel 1956: 48 ). In
fact the roots of the African Tirailleurs are much older. They
can be traced back to the first years of company rule in
seventeenth century Senegambia, when British and French mili-
tary recruiters took on local Africans as soldiers and sailors
in order to augment European units which formed the core of the
small company detachments (Boisboissel 1956: 47-48 ).
During the course of the nineteenth century the Tirail-
leurs underwent several transformations, as Table 12.1 indi-
cates. At the beginning of the post-Napoleonic era in 1820,
TABLE 12.1
GROWTH OF THE TIRAILLEURS, 1820-1914
Year Size Year Size Year Size
1820 23 1862 900 1900 8,400
1823 125 1867 1,000 1902 8,639
1827 200 1872 625 1904 9,000
1831 400 1882 1,200 1911 11,980
1839 150 1886 1,600 1912 12,920
1848 250 1888 2,000 1913 14,790
1852 350 1891 2,400 1914 17,356
1857 500 1893 5,087
1895 5,987 1920s 48,000

Curtin, Philip D.; Lovejoy, Paul E. / Africans in bondage : studies in slavery and the slave trade : essays in honor of Philip D.

Curtin on the occasion of the twenty-fifth anniversary of African Studies at the University of Wisconsin
(1986)

Echenberg, Myron
Chapter 12: Slaves into soldiers: social origins of the Tirailleurs Senegalais, pp. [unnumbered]-333 ff.