dynamicafrica:

Yora Comba, 38 ans, St Louis, lieutenant aux tirailleurs sénégalais (l’un des 41 portraits anthropologiques présentés à l’Exposition universelle de 1889 à Paris)

@credits

The Senegalese Tirailleurs (French: Tirailleurs Sénégalais) were a corps of colonial infantry in the French Army recruited from Senegal, French West Africa and throughout west, central and east Africa, the main province of the French colonial empire. The noun tirailleur, which translates as “skirmisher”, was a designation given by the French Army to indigenous infantry recruited in the various colonies and overseas possessions of the French Empire during the 19th and 20th centuries.

Despite recruitment not being limited to Senegal, these infantry units took on the adjective “sénégalais” since that was where the first black African Tirailleur regiment had been formed. The first Senegalese Tirailleurs were formed in 1857 and served France in a number of wars, including World War I (providing around 200,000 troops, more than 135,000 of whom fought in Europe and 30,000 of whom were killed) and World War II.

via frenchhistory