Guns on the Early Frontiers

From Colonial Times to the Years of the Western Fur Trade

Carl P. Russell

• Publisher: Dover Publications
• Year: 2012
• Print ISBN: 9780486436814
• eBook ISBN: 9780486140230
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Military & Maritime History
• Index: History

This thoroughly documented, authoritative, and highly readable book not only details the weapons used during the settlement and westward expansion of America but also describes their use by fur traders, trappers, soldiers, and Native Americans. The result is a lively historical examination of the momentous events that were strongly influenced by the gun trade.
The text is augmented and enriched throughout with clearly identified illustrations of everything from antique muskets, flintlocks, repeating rifles, and howitzers to bullet molds, powder horns, and other firearm accessories.
“An outstanding contribution to firearms literature. It sets its own standard.” — The New York Times.
“For collectors, museum curators, archaeologist-historians, this book is — in its field — an essential contribution.” — Kirkus.
“A Glossary of Gun Terms, ample footnotes most skillfully arranged, and illustrations … complement the text which achieves the miracle of scholarship without tedium.” — San Francisco Chronicle.

Notes

CHAPTER I ARMING THE AMERICAN INDIAN (pages 1–61)

1

Biggar, 1922–1936, II, 100–103; quoted by permission of The Champlain Society, Toronto, Canada. The picture of Champlain firing his famous shot faces p. 101.

2

Ibid., pp. 97–100; quoted by permission of The Champlain Society.

3

“Though the new firearms, dismally primitive improvisations, were lamentably capricious in their operation, a man could fire one after comparatively little training; a competent longbowman was of necessity the product of a lifetime of practice and conditioning. Perhaps the chemical wonder of early firearms contributed to their success. In those bleak, superstitious days it was agreed by everybody that gunners were in close alliance with the Devil.” (Italics mine.) Shields, 1954, p. 2, quoted by permission of Coward-McCann, Inc.

4

Wallhausen, 1615; quoted by Metschl, 1928, pp. 51–52.

5

Greener, 1881, p. 54; Curtis, 1927, pp. 107–133; Hammond and Rey, 1940, passim; Powell, 1952, pp. 48, 61, 63, 84, 123, 126–129.

6

Metschl, 1928, p. 53; Peterson, n.d.(a), pp. 1–58. For Lemoyne’s narrative see Lorant, 1946. Theodore de Bry obtained the Lemoyne paintings, made copper engravings from them, and published them in England in 1591; 43 of these engravings, with Lemoyne’s legends, are reprinted in the Lorant book. A score or so of matchlocks appear in the pictures, and details of mechanism are shown. Barrels swell at the breech to give strength “where the powder doth lye,” modest scrollwork is engraved at the breech and in the midsection, and the muzzle is enclosed within a ring resembling the end of a “cannon-barrel” pistol. The forestock extends nearly to the muzzle; no ramrod is shown, and no bands or pins for holding the barrel to the stock are in evidence. The serpentine, or cock, and the flashpan are shown clearly. The trigger is a curved rod ending in a hook for the convenience of the trigger finger. Lieutenants accompanying the arquebusiers carry either halberds or pikes and swords. In only one engraving is a pistol in evidence. In action, the lieutenants wore light armor and steel helmets and carried shields. Like the French on the St. Lawrence, the Laudonnière party in Florida adopted certain tribes as allies and took their guns into action against the enemies of their friends. The artist Lemoyne, armed with an arquebus, accompanied a war party of “Outina” (Utina) Indians in warfare against their neighbors, the “Potanou” (Potano). (See Lorant, p. 65.) Details of the type of matchlock carried by Lemoyne and contemporary instructions for firing these guns with the butt against the breast are given in Jackson, 1923, pp. 2, 4–5. A specimen lock for this type of gun is preserved in the Dexter Collection (no. 827 FB), Burbank, Calif. See also Dexter, 1955, p. 7.

7

Peterson, n.d.(a), pp. 50–53·

8

Quoted by Metschl, 1928, p. 54.

9

Schön, 1858, and Montecuculi, 1722; quoted by Metschl, 1928, p. 53. Peter Martensson Lindestrom, a Swedish officer who was present when, in 1655, Dutch forces removed the Swedes from Fort Casimir near the site of present Wilmington, Del., testifies that the Swedish commander, Skute, abandoned the fort at the head of a small contingent of Swedish soldiers, “with loaded guns, burning fuses, pipes and beating drums.” That the Dutch military also used matchlocks at this time is revealed by Lindestrom’s account of Stuyvesant’s dinner party for the vanquished. Behind each Swede seated at table stood “two [Dutch] musketeers with their guns and burning fuses.” Ward, 1930, pp. 193–194.

10

O’Callaghan, 1853–1887, I, 182, 388, 389, 392; IV, 57, 126, 236; IX, 408, 409.

11

Ibid., IX, 408–409.

12

Gov. Fletcher to Committee of Trade, 1693, O’Callaghan, IV, 57. The term “firelock” was synonymous with “snaphance” and “flintlock” in the late seventeenth century (see Sawyer, 1910, p. 13; Gluckman, 1948, p. 35). The “fusee,” or fusil, was a light flint gun which during the later decades of the seventeenth century was the characteristic arm of Army officers (Peterson, n.d.a, p. 43). Diderot, writing in the mid-eighteenth century, stated that the fusil was invented by Frenchmen in 1630 to replace the mousquet. The first troops to carry the fusil equipped with bayonet were the Regiment Royal Artillerie, 1671. In 1699–1700 the fusil had replaced the mousquet for artillery and cavalry use, and three years later Louis XIV ordered the reduction of pikemen and the adoption of the bayonet by the infantry. Diderot observed, “the fusil with bayonet is very redoubtable.” Diderot, XV, 563–565.

13

Lords of Trade to Gov. Fletcher, 1696, O’Callaghan, IV, 256.

14

O’Callaghan, IV, 126, 236.

15

Gov. Thomas Dongan’s report, Feb. 22, 1687; quoted by Mayer, 1943a, p. 55.

16

Peterson, 1947a, pp. 203–205; Sawyer, 1910, p. 13.

17

Schmidt, 1877, p. 33; Lahontan, 1905, p. 377. As early as 1689, Lahontan, who had for several years traveled among the Indians of the Great Lakes region, in the Illinois country, and along the upper reaches of the Mississippi, reported that the short and light fusee was the favorite of the red man. In his list of recommended items for the French trade in Canada he emphasized the importance of this type of gun. That the longer barrels (50–60 inches) had been abandoned by the English traders is evidenced by the invoices of the Hudson’s Bay Co. during the century following Lahontan’s published comment. Trade muskets seldom exceeded 4 ft. in total length, with barrels 33 in. long. In 1748, English guns having 27-in. and 33-in. as well as 21-in. barrels were distributed from Hudson’s Bay Co. posts in the north country. At York Factory, muskets of all three lengths were sold for 14 beavers each. At Moose River and Albany (James Bay), the price was 10 beavers for the gun with 21-in. barrel, 11 beavers for the intermediate length, and 12 for the 4-ft. gun (33-in. barrel). (Woodward, 1948b, pp. 3–4.) The tradition of short barrels for trade muskets persisted throughout the years that such guns were made. The specimens considered in chap. iii are representative of the period 1805 to date; none has a barrel longer than 36 in., and most of the specimens are still shorter.

18

C. W. Brown, 1918, p. 73.

19

It is said that a few Iroquois had and used the flintlock rifle as early as 1750, “but it remained for a fragment of manuscript in the St. Louis Mercantile Library, part of the Journal of Auguste Chouteau, to establish the fact that in 1736, the Chickasaw were not only armed with rifles, but were generally good shots.” Dillin, 1924, pp. 89–92.

20

The principal groups: Abnaki, Algonkin, Chippewa, Eskimo (Labrador), Foxes, Huron, Kickapoo, Malecite, Menominee, Miami, Micmac, Montagnais-Naskapi, neutral Iroquois, Ottawa, Penobscot, Penna-cook, Potawatomi, Sauk, Susquehanna, Tionontat, and Winnebago. Swanton, 1952, passim.

21

At this time the principal tribes of the upper Mississippi–Missouri–James Bay sector were the Assiniboin, Arapaho, Cheyenne–Sutaio, Cree, Dakota, Hidatsa, Illinois, Iowa, Mandan, Missouri, Osage, and Pawnee. The Cree, long-time customers of the French, and the Assiniboin divided their business between the French and the English after the Hudson’s Bay Co. posts on James Bay were established in the 1670’s. The Illinois, firm friends of the French, were temporarily broken up by the Iroquois after 1682. Swanton, 1952, passim.

22

The Hudson’s Bay Co. Committee, meeting March 4, 1671, instructed “That Mr. Bailey . . . treate with such persons as he thinks fitt . . . for supplying 200 fowleing pieces . . . first bringing patterns of the guns to be bought unto the next committee.” The Frenchmen Radisson and Des Groseilliers were to advise the committee with respect to the fitness of the arms. Hudson’s Bay Co. Minute Book (in Canadian Archives), Oct. 24, 1671, p. 30; quoted in Innis, 1930, p. 127.

23

Wilson, 1951, pp. 50–55. The fighting ended in 1697, but no conclusive vic...

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Dedication
• Copyright Page
• Preface
• Table of Contents
• Table of Figures
• I - Arming the American Indian
• II - Personal Weapons of the Traders and Trappers
• III - Trade Muskets and Rifles Supplied to the Indians
• IV - Military Arms of the Fur-Trade Period
• V - Powder, Ball, and Accessories
• VI - Small Cannon of the Traders and the Military
• Acknowledgments
• Finding List - COLLECTIONS IN WHICH ILLUSTRATED GUNS AND APPURTENANCES ARE PRESERVED
• Notes
• Glossary of Gun Therms
• Bibliography
• Index