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This essay uses German East Africa as a historical example to illustrate some of the complex interrelationships between colonial labor and military practices. Analysis of African soldiers' roles in colonial labor regimes underscores the degree to which colonial militaries, labor, and punitive structures reinforced each other on a daily basis. Colonial states depended on their African soldiers, and the free and unfree laborers they recruited, conscripted, and supervised, for preservation of the German colonial state's political authority and economic viability. Moreover, these military labor practices tied soldiers' households to colonial state interests, laying the basis for new colonial cultures and campaign communities.