Applying historical ethnography, the chapter demonstrates that the nature of the interactions between Africans and the French along the West African coast from the late sixteenth to the early twentieth centuries did not favor the development of either a French-based creole or a pidgin. When the first French traders arrived in West Africa they capitalized on the century-long trade routes and social networks established by the Portuguese. They formed partnerships with powerful female commercial partners, who acted as language and cultural brokers between African and French traders. Over time, trading practices evolved from direct exchanges requiring mutual language learning to the emergence of professional interpreters, making it less necessary for the trading partners to learn each other’s language. By the eighteenth century, the French engaged in military conquests. The nature of interactions between African recruits and French officers and the types of population structures in which the former were inserted, did not favor the emergence of a pidgin-like variety identified in creolistics as Français Tirailleur. A detailed analysis of some of the grammatical structures of this putative variety suggests that Français Tirailleur was likely fabricated by those who described or quoted it in their books.