The Dominant ARMS TRADE in the COLONIAL ERA - Knives, Axes & Firearms!
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- Опубликовано: 8 фев 2025
- The European trade in weapons during the age of colonialism in the Americas, Asia, Africa and New Zealand - KNIVES, AXES & FIREARMS
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that tomahawk was a tricky one to forge. glad you like them Matt.
Thanks again!
What part is the hard or tricky part when making these ?
As a matter of history, I wonder what carpenter’s hatchets looked like before trade started with Native Americans. Current carpenter’s hatchets look very much like tomahawks with a different handle.
@@tomhalla426 the carpenters hatchet is just like a wood axe because it’s blade base is wider than the handle.
It is a bit too heavy and expensive to use as a tomahawk. The tomahawk or battle axe has a blade base thinner than the handle with a thicker rounder handle for strength in all directions. The carpenters hatchet handle is only strong in the forward and backwards direction.
How heavy is the tomahawk ??
In the French and Indian war (seven years war) British regulars often carried a tomahawk instead of a hanger as it was a more practical tool on campaign in the woods and could also be used as a weapon if needed
Stone age trade was a thing; south pacific islanders extensively traded stone and obsidian. Islands with no suitable blade material typically have imported stone and glass blades. Very pronounced and archaeologically and geologically easy to prove.
Nice video by the way, thank you, Gus
I read an article recently about a stone tool found at the bottom of Georgian Bay, (Ontario Canada) believed to have been lost when Georgian Bay was not part of Lake Huron (so a long long time ago), and the stone was believed to have come from the west coast of North America, If true, this stone, or the knife fashioned from it had travelled thousands of miles something like ten thousand years ago.
That makes a lot of sense when you also consider the extensive tin trade in the bronze age, where a handful of mining regions supplied most of Eurasia. People sometimes assumes ancient technology was primitive and simple, but obviously industrial centres and trade has always been a thing.
YES, I've been wanting you to talk about frontier era trade knives! Some of the very best were made in Sheffield. When the British colonial Wabash Land Company negotiated a huge tract of land from the Piankeshaw tribe here in Indiana in 1775, among the trade items, which include hundreds of pounds of gun powder, vermilion, tobacco, etc. are also listed "fifty-two fusils, thirty-five dozen large buckhorn-handle knives, [and] forty dozen couteau knives".
If you go to East Africa today and look at Masaii Warrior sword (seme/sime) today, a lot of them on the market are Chinese machetes reshaped (not reforged) ... I am not sure if they all are, but the ones you could buy around Arusha when I lived there were. The Masaii spear (rungu) on the other hand was probably forged by the local smiths.
That is matching my experience in Kenya around 2010.
However, in my mind rungu was the wooden club, in maa language I think it is orinka. But the Kalenjin I stayed with called the club rungu.
Reforging a machete is a fools errand when it can be reshaped without compromising heat treat, unlike what forging would do. The ones made by the maasai have no heat treat at all. They do not have an understanding of it. I have watched many be made by them, and not a single one ever got so much as spit on.
1) Part of the US Army's "Best Ranger" competition is throwing the tomahawk
2) both the RN and USN called boarding axes "tomahawks"
9:10 Same thing with the horse. Once the Comanche got horses they went ala mongol and dominated the other tribes.
Imagine living in Texas and having to WALK everywhere 😵
Nice stuff. Im half native myself & luckily my family were quite sentimantal so we still have my ancestors knife & tomahawk. As well as some other antiques such as a hunting sword/hanger& powder horn used by another of my ancestors etc.
I'd like to see a video about how the Native Americans developed and made the switch from atlatl and thrown spears, to the bow and arrow, and the gradual adoption of metal projectile points from stone antler and bone. I know barrel hoops were a favorite source for making arrowheads.
this is very relevant to my non-internet life volunteering at fort vancouver, it was cheaper to buy trade knife blades by the barrel from sheffield than for essentially country smiths to make them, and the quality and consistency were much better.
at least in hbc trading posts axes were locally produced in standard weights and shapes from iron forge welded around a carriage steel bit. they turned them out in quantity. we have records of several different tribes showing up on successive days with orders in the hundreds each on top of resupply for the company's fur trappers.
the blades were sold un-hilted/un-hafted and without sheaths.
Why was it more economical to mass produce and trade knives, instead of making them locally, but not axes when axes usually require a lot more skill and effort to produce? That’s atleast the case for the middle ages, maybe it’s different in the early modern era.
The European trade in weapons during the age of colonialism in the Americas, Asia, Africa and New Zealand - KNIVES, AXES & FIREARMS
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"I should've listened to my cousin Gaila. He said to me, 'Quark, I've got one word for you: Weapons.' No one ever went broke selling weapons." -- Quark, Star Trek: TNG
Great video, the plural of Māori is Māori, like sheep no s gets added.
I'd love to see you discuss traditional Scottish weapons, since you mentioned sgian dubhs. There are so many good subjects to cover, sgian dubhs, dirks, targes, basket hilted broadswords, claymores, highland claymores vs lowland claymores, poleaxes, the scottish hedgehog, the highland charge... Sorry to ramble, but it's a huge interest for me
Still waiting for a video on the Maori taiaha.
One of the most beautiful combat tools ever made
the bones of large vertebrates is a great material for making hilts and its especially resourceful in situations where there is abundance of deer or feral pigs
Nothing quite like the aroma of aerosolized bone.
I love this kind of stuff because our family property we've had for 220 plus years has all kinds of Indian artifacts all over I find arrowheads constantly in fact I gave one to one of my Native American friends just last summer
The French sold the Natives in America axes made of soft iron so that they would wear out quickly and they would have to come back to them for new ones. Iron tools, firearms and horses revolutionized Native culture in North America before it was nearly obliterated. The Eskimos/Inuits who traded with the Vikings would wear out steel tools to the point that they would be handed down to next generations in the form of iron pieces used to scrape hides, so valued were these steel tools even when reduced to fragments.
"the Russians, the British.... and many others."
Oh Matt, you are so delightfully diplomatic. Cheers from the US. :)
Was thinking the same thing 😅
Thank you for this presentation. My concept of "colonial era" was very limited before watching this video.
The Americas featured stone-age civilizations when Europe invaded. Skipping from stone age to iron age with gunpowder must have been quite the shock. It was amazing that the Aztec Empire was a high civilization with stone age technology and that a stone age civilization could be advanced even with stone tools still isn't accepted by mainstream science.
The deep dive on the tomahawk will be interesting. A stone axe has a greater tendency to chip and splinter than a steel axe--and I've cursed many a steel axe head when it dulled during use.
Like the Maori the guns were given to the Iroquois and they started the Beaver Wars that either pushed other tribes west and in some cases whiped others out. The French gave and traded to the Ojibwe who ultmately drove the Souix out of western Wisconsin to the far western part of Minnesota. If you look at where there are Ojibwe reservations now that was the traditional lands of the Souix and Cheyenne. The earliest record of the Cheyenne by the French is a group that traveled to Fort Crevecoeur near present day Peoria.
Exactly,the Maori should be great full the Europeans showed up and gave them steal, new crops, technology, clothing, education.....if they didn't the Maori would still be running round eating and enslaving each other wearing grass skirts
Very cool knife replicas! Another well researched and excellent video, Matt.
Theres a couple of places in UK that had a green stone up in the mountains which was harder and stronger than flint those areas became rich because every one wanted those axes so they traded all over UK Ireland and Europe
Please identify said stone, I don’t know of it ?
One of the big reasons the Moaris were considered so war like was their population was actually collapsing before contact with Europeans. Moaris had only been in New Zealand for around 1000 yrs, there population had boomed due to the plentiful supply of Moa birds they hunted and ate, but they were hunted to extinction by the about the mid 1700's causeing a lack off food and hence more conflict over the dwinderling food supply
Maori* 😂
@@bensullivan9478 did pointing out a minor spelling mistake give you a warm fuzzy glow of superiority?
As I understand it, we know of a very regional type of tool stone from Scotlant that was found in the southern end of the UK from Neolithic artifacts. While not so far as transcontinental, there is clear evidence at least national-scale distribution or trade going back at least as far as thr Neolithic, yes.
@scholagladiatoria you forgot the aztecs and tarascans made and used bronze for some of their weapons since yes there was metal in the americas its just some of them didn't know how steel works!
IIRC the Inuit and possibly other NA peoples traded for metal (iron) tools/weapons with the Norse.
And the Harper gvt covered up finds regarding this trade because they would rather sell mineral rights to the land than pay for archilogical research.@@glenndennis6801
As far as i know, the Inca's were pretty much a bronze age civilisation. They did have helmets made out of metal. Copper and sometimes bronze maceheads and even golden halberd-like weapons.
People should talk about the Inca's more (especially in this context weapons and armour)
beautiful tomahawk and knife
Fantastic video, I'd be delighted to see more of this kind. Ta very much, Matt.
There's a great article on the sophistication of Iroquois warfare. After acquiring iron, they rapidly adapted their strategies to take advantage of them.
Aaah man! Just always love your videos.
Very interesting, thanks for covering the topic !
Started trying my hand at Flint napping in the last few years (I Suck at it, to be fair)
It has given me appreciation for mental blades and tools that requires a lot on the user to break. At least when compared to flint/chert/obsidian tools.
I know I hate it when people beak up my thought process on weapons! How dare they…. 😂
Inca and some pre-Inca peoples in South America also had access and the knowledge to make bronze. The metal was not applied or chemically composed with the same ideas, purposes, and knowledge employed in the Old World.
Inca's in general need to be talked about more. Really the only empire in America that actually used a lot of metal before the Europeans arrived.
Given the Inca had relatively superior technology and the fact they were quite consistent in the expansion of the empire, I often wonder if Europeans had never arrived how large would it have become before collapse.
Hi there matt nice video on these trade weapons got a collection of swords sold some in the past some guns got two matchlocks one is a araqebus which I fired alot there made in india get a bad reputation for ruptured barrels when firing had great perform with ones I have loyalist arms has them veteran arms only downfall they make the stocks out of teakwood instead of walnut all they have in india fun to shoot hard to in the UK without a license store of the black powder thanks for upload Iam shawn watched your channel on off.
Cheers Shawn. 🍻
I have a buddy who went to Pakistan and purchased working firearms and it was kind of interesting to see the videos of him reproduced replicas of 19th Century weapons along with more modern ones like the AK-47 variations.
Very interesting overview, thank you for making and sharing!
Great video, I'd love to see a deep dive into trade and patch knives, tomahawks as well.
Hey Matt. Just a suggestion but a great topic for your channel could be the Deerskin trade in colonial Southeast America in the 16th and 17th centuries. There was a huge demand for deerskin in Europe and the Southeastern native Americans were trading them for guns. With guns, they were able to kill more deer. This went on for so long that white tail deer in large portions of the Southeast were virtually extirpated and for around a hundred years there were basically no deer in the Southeast until they were reintroduced in the 1950s...Now, they're overpopulated in much of the Southeast.
It's why a dollar is called a buck. A deerskin was worth one dollar.
There was a lot of hunting going on in the North east as well. A lot of the early American exploration west of the Appalachians and Allegehnies was driven by long hunters supplying the deer hide trade.
I love colonial era trade knives. Often very basic, simple, inexpensive tools, but with a function-over-form aesthetic of their own. They're a great pattern to copy for people wanting to make a knife for the first time.
Very interesting and informative. Thanks Matt.
Curious of weapons used during the King Philips War in the Massachusetts Bay Colony. First war my namesake were involved in in the new world. Farther (12 generation) and his son were civilian soldiers who were commanded by Captain Jonathan Poole.
...really marvellous weapons in Indonesia too!!...keris, golok etc...😀
Very interesting topic, thank you!
Great discussion. Thank you
Great stuff
Awesome blades
Matt! You had the perfect opportunity to say "carried out war on a scale hitherto undreamt of" how often do you get a chance like that?!
Good video & information thanks
I love when you discuss non-European or Asian weapons because they are talked about so much already. It would be cool to see a more in depth video about Southern Africa, South America or Pacific Islander weapons.
The Aztecs didn't have metal blades but they certainly had some very wicked obsidian ones, sharp enough to cut out a victims still beating heart!
Great topic.
It certainly stands to reason that knives and hatchets would mostly have been shipped as just blades. Native Americans were quite adept at making handles and many (most?) of them would have preferred something with some personalization. No need to take up the space and weight of handles when the end user is more likely than not to change it anyway. Firearms were a different case, but we still see a lot of customization of Native Americans' firearms. Colonists' weapons seem to have been less customized than Native ones, but they still often had some little personal flourishes.
An interesting thing I read somewhere while studying... and unfortunately I fon't remember the resource, was that the Zulu's traded knife blades with the British due to fact that thier steel was better quality thsn the Sheffield mass produced stuff being brought in to South Africa or soldnin the UK.
Lmao, aye right pal
Id read up on that.... European steel was generally better, I believe.
@@Man_fay_the_Bru considering it was published during the apartheid era, I can't see why someone would publish something essentialy praising indiginous industry and handcrafts.
13:25 The words you were searching for were "in exchange for humans".
I have always wondered how, since the beginning of time, how people’s across the planet developed everything from the spear, bow, hatchet , knife, club all roughly the the same time period..the Bow is a big question… maybe a review by you on all periods of development across the entire planet..
13:26 the word you’re searching for is slaves.
Native people also used bone for weapon points and blades
You have seen that movie too then, rather gruesome.
Interesting video, I enjoyed it very much. You certainly are knowledgeable about a lot of things.
For many years I was a professional ‘smith that made mostly antique knives and axes
Is hard to overestimate how important these things soon became to the Indians.
I read that many times the Indians had steel knives and axes but have never seen a white man having traded them from other Indians etc.
That blade style was called a scalper or case knife. Normally just the blades were traded at this time. Some called a “ cartouche “ knife had pierced brass handles over horn
Those deer or sheep bone handles while maybe looking Neato are probably not historically correct and if not filled with epoxy will not be very sturdy
I made all my knives using only traditional means, and I have made more then a few leg bone handles but they make a rather fragile knife
There is a Video of Q&A (?) Arsenal, about nepalese rifles.
I have often wondered about how Cortez would have armed his tlaxcalan allies against the Aztecs. Common sense says cheap iron spearheads would have been an obvious force multiplier, but as far as i know there is no historical record detailing arms supplied to Cortez's indian allies. Since he burned his fleet to prevent desertion it would have been logical to salvage iron fittings from burnt ships to fabricate weapons.
Post Aztec conquest the Tlaxcalan were armed with European weapons including firearms and often fought as native auxiliaries with the Spanish in both Mexican campaigns and overseas as far as the Philippines.
@@colbunkmust I am sure it is true that after the defeat of the Aztecs the Tlaxcalans would be better equipped. What fascinates me is how the Spanish and indigenous forces were able to unite and defeat the bloody and well organized Aztec Empire. Unless I have been misinformed there would have been only a few dozen firearms available, those being matchlock arquebus and small cannon.
@@robertbean8116 well, there were some 80000 indigenous allies fighting against the Aztecs, so there's that. Also, there were Spanish reinforcements sent to assist Cortes partway through the expedition, so that estimate of the number of firearms on hand is probably a tad low. Assuming that the Spanish troops were formed like a tercio there were probably over a hundred gunners.
I actually won a tomahawk throwing contest at an outdoorsman show when I was 12
were human bones ever used to make the handles of knives swords or tomahawks?
Yes on occasion human bones were used by both European descent and Native peoples.
obviously, people even used human ash to make stuff like steel, or Porcelain.
There is a spear I have seen in the Auckland museum that has a leg bone integrated into the shaft.
I made a northwest Indian Tlingit dagger using the top of a human femur for a handle before, customer had a photo of what he said was an original…I don’t know
I have made 3 antique walking sticks with human bone handles
Have the bone of the bone handled knives checked. Human bone was sometimes used.
it was deer bone i used.
A comparison of native American war club and European mace would be interesting.
18:30 Heavy Mattel
lovely morning
Hello any advice on Sending items in the U.K. or even over seas?
I’ve seen a lot of couriers won’t touch “weapons” even replicas or antiques.
And I think some won’t insure them.
(Which I feel is totally discriminating.)
And then some who do delivery them won’t even pick them up at the door You have to go to a depot.
Which isn’t convenient for some people.
And most people aren’t going to like saying what the item is when asked.
Is there any generic terms you could use when asked?
(I know you shouldn’t need to but it just the world we live in.)
Any advice on who to use?
There companies that sell blanks and such or even fireworks who delivers them?
Those are some cool weapons.
"if we take the Americas...they didn't have access to any metal...when the Europeans turn up there re things they want...obviously gold"
I'm not a metallurgist, but I'm pretty sure Gold is a metal.
...very nice vid, this!!!😀
YES now I want to learn how Japanese and European style armor was combined
Fascinating history stories, I wonder what the origin of Ohilipines weapons are, looks like a style of its own, as well as fabrication of it, somewhat similar to Japanees, but more developed evolution wise opposed to katana being almost the same for almost thousand years
I believe the Japanese got their own musket production lines going quite quickly.
Indeed by 16th Century Japan had the most firearms per capita. They basically mass produced a Spanish arquebus and issued to thousands of Ashigaru and Samurai
@@KhanB4theStorm The Zero and Yamato battle ship weren't bad either.
Interesting
How do u keep all this info in your head man?
Mat, don't forget to bring in your tricycle. Wouldn't want it getting rained on
All the colonial adoptions and permutations of the Kukri could be really interesting
Just a small point: "Maori" is both the singular and the plural.
Leaving aside the issue of trading for metal weapons, a steel ax or knife is superior stone, it is only natural that the natives in areas that didn't have steel tools wanted them. Try chopping down a big tree with a stone ax or butchering an elk with a flint blade and the superiority of steel only makes sense. This romantic myth that the natives were one with nature, over looks the fact that they had no choice. When they had the choice, they switched to steel as soon as they could. As the video points out, this has been going on since the begining of human history.
A tomahawk and a wood cutting hatchet are two very different things and always were.
Have you ever seen even a current carpenters hatchet?
@@tomhalla426 current as in the one I currently use ? Yes .
I doubt it. Considering a Native American likely had to trade everything he owned that was surplus for his survival in order to obtain a European trade axe, I’m pretty certain he used it as a tool pretty much daily and only as a weapon on rare occasions. He wouldn’t have had a wood cutting axe for making a shelter, fire ect and a fighting axe for sport.
A Tomahawk with a remowable head is not suited as a combat weapon. It looks like he has used a Cold Steel Tomahawk axe shaft, and they are much wider and thicker than in the old days. The fighting hawk is lighter with a head that is wedged like a normal axe. Very easy when you strike with the top part of the axe, that the head slides down. This is a more modern bushcraft axe idea.
i didnt use a cold steel haft. i get my hafts from blacksmith depot. i look at alot of museum examples for refrence and almost all of them dont have a wedge. they are slid onto the haft from the bottom. but there certainly are some like you said that do have wedges and thinner hafts but not as many as you might think.
Always more tomahawk everything. And tomahawk Bowie combo.
Deep dive into Tomahawks. Yes please.
Ha this title could apply to my hood growing up!
Interesting vid. One pedantic point, there is no 's' in Te Reo. The plural is Maori.
I own a Nepali made Martini Rifle which I have never fired and never will
The bravest of the brave did never match the maxim gun.
💯
How come swords were so rarely traded to Native Americans compared to axes, when swords were by far the most common melee sidearm in Europe at the time? I considered whether they would rather trade tools instead of weapons, but if they also frequently traded muskets that doesn’t make sense. And plenty Native American tomahawks are clearly constructed as weapons rather than tools, so why not just get swords?
The tomahawk was more practical. Running through the woods with a sword makes no sense. Different fighting styles. Europeans battled in open fields. The Natives were more guerilla warfare.
Is there a difference between "sheath" and "scabbard" other than one being English and the other, French. I don't want to offend any "English" speakers by using an English word when I don't have to
I tend to associate scabbards being made predominantly out of hard materials like wood, metal ect.or have that type of material as the core And sheaths exclusively with soft materials like leather, hide, cloth ect. Weather that's official or not I'm not sure but that's how I intemperate it in modern usage.
“Not having access to metal” sounds so much more tactful than “they were still stone-age savages”.
And nowadays of course it is Indian and Chinese blades being traded back to Europe.
Bump
European traders traded guns for _people_ in Africa.
Interesting? Yup.
Damn that's a cool knife,! go ahead and take Manhattan
This is exactly why the Maori in NZ should be greatfull the Europeans showed up and gave them steal,new crops, clothing, education, housing and trade that didn't involve attacking and enslaving other tribes ,or eating them
Exa
Did this go the other way? Were Germans collectors buying local swords?
Probably out of collection, they wouldn't be using inferior blades for obvious reasons
Just adopt me.
Seriously dangerous knives to use.
It's okay you can say the Americans lost in Afghanistan, we dont get butthurt about it like vietnam 😂