Sepoy

A sepoy (/ˈsiːpɔɪ/) was the designation given to an Indian infantryman armed with a musket in the armies of the Mughal Empire and the British East India Company.

In the 18th century, the French East India Company and its European counterparts employed locally recruited soldiers within India, mainly consisting of infantry designated as "sepoys". The largest sepoy force, trained along European lines, served the British East India Company.

The term "sipahi" (or sometimes "sepoy") continues in use in the Indian, Pakistan and Nepalese armies, where it denotes the rank of private.

In Persian اسپ (Aspa) means horse and Ispahai is also the word for cavalrymen.

The term sepoy is the anglicised form of the Persian word sepāhī (سپاهی), meaning the traditional "infantry soldier" in the Mughal Empire.

The term sepoy came into common use in the forces of the British East India Company in the eighteenth century, where it was one of a number of names, such as peons, gentoos, mestees and topasses, used for various categories of native soldier. Initially it referred to Hindu or Muslim soldiers without regular uniforms or discipline. It later generically referred to all native soldiers in the service of the European powers in India. Close to ninety-six percent of the British East India Company's army of 300,000 men were native to India and these sepoys played a crucial role in securing the subcontinent for the company.

The earliest sepoys used matchlock muskets and operated bulky and inefficient cannons to a limited extent during the reigns of Babur Akbar when archery and fighting from horseback was more common. By the time of Aurangzeb the Mughal armies had advanced significantly and utilized a wider range of weapons to win battles.

During the Carnatic Wars and Anglo-Mysore Wars the sepoys of the Mughal Empire employed more advanced types of musket, as well as blunderbuss and rocket weapons.