A selection of body armors from the regions south of Lake Chad (southern Chad and Cameroon).

A selection of body armors from the regions south of Lake Chad (southern Chad and Cameroon). 

In much of precolonial Subsaharan Africa, body armors were not that much used, and where they were once used, they had become completely superfluous by the 19th century, on account of the wide proliferation of firearms. In the regions south of Lake Chad however, far away from the coastal and trans-Saharan trade routes, firearms had not yet fully supplanted melee weapons. In these regions, a variety of body armors continued to be used into the late 19th century, including the so-called Bornu cuirasses, used as far south as the Bamileke country in addition to iron cuirasses specific to the Bamileke, leather cuirasses including crocodile leather, chain mail, quilted cotton and even armors made from woven plant fibers.