The sixteenth century, particularly the period following the Ottoman conquest of North Africa, was a watershed moment for the growth and expansion of military slavery in the Maghrib. Between 1512 and 1574, after they halted Spain’s imperial and colonial ambitions, with the exception of Morocco, the Ottomans, in turn, occupied the region. To administer these new eyalets (provinces), which were now incorporated into the Ottoman Empire, the Ottomans introduced a military system based exclusively on mamluk infantry, the vast majority of whom were of slave castes. By comparison to the mamluks, employment of military slaves and militia derived from the regions of sub-Saharan Africa that had occurred both before and after the Ottoman period has been overlooked in the historiography of the Ottoman domains in general. In Ottoman Tunis, for instance, while the existence of a lesser-known Sudanic military corps has been documented by contemporaneous sources, to date very little is known about their presence, roles, or functions. Using contemporary accounts, chronicles, Husaynid beylical administrative records, travelers’ accounts, and oral interviews, this article explores the political climate that accounted for the presence of this Sudanic military corps and how it shaped the corporate identity of enslaved sub-Saharan Africans of Sudanic descent in Ottoman Tunis. By placing the paper within the literature on military slavery, I argue that while the Sudanic military corps does not fit into the dominant category of mamluks or kul (elites) slavery in the wake of the Ottoman period, not only do they reflect continuity of a much older tradition of employing slaves or militia for political ends in the wider Islamic context, but they also tell a story of slavery and a continuity of historical relations between Ifriqiyya and the Bilad al-Sudan.