Explores the history of Britain's colonial army in West Africa,
especially the experiences of ordinary soldiers recruited in the region.
West African Soldiers in Britain's Colonial Army explores the complex
and constantly changing experience of West African soldiers under
British command in Nigeria, the Gold Coast (now Ghana), Sierra Leone,
and the Gambia. Since cost and tropical disease limited the deployment
of British metropolitan troops to the region, British colonial rule in
West Africa depended heavily on locally recruited soldiers and their
families. This force became Britain's largest colonial army in
Sub-Saharan Africa.
West African Soldiers looks at the development of this colonial military
from the conquest era of the late nineteenth century to decolonization
in the 1950s. Rather than describing the many battles fought by this
army both regionally and overseas, and informed by the concept of
military culture, the book looks at the broad and overlapping themes of
identity, culture, daily life, and violence. Chapter topics include the
enslaved origins of the force, military identities including the myth of
martial races, religious life, visual symbols like uniforms and
insignia, health care related to tropical and sexually transmitted
diseases, the experience of army wives, disciplinary flogging, mutiny,
day-to-day violence committed by troops, and the employment of former
soldiers by the colonial state. Based on archival research in five
countries, the book derives inspiration from previous work on ordinary
African soldiers in the British and German colonies of East Africa and
in French West Africa.
