The OED gives machete as an alternative spelling for MATCHET (also machet and macheto) - first written reference (at least in English) is given as 1598. The definition is a broad and heavy knife or cutlass, used especially in Central Americas and the West Indies as both a tool and a weapon. Its similarities to the early (and somewhat primitive) naval cutlasses used by the ordinary sailors (not the swords of the officers) in both English and Spanish navies cannot be ignored...
Later machetes may have been manufactured locally, but with little or no metalworking technology present (certainly not in iron and steel, except possibly for meteoritic iron) before the colonisation, all tools and weapoons must have been made in the home country. Spain like the UK had a long history of edge tool making, and use of locally made billhooks and sickles, as well as knife and sword making...
I would guess that machetes were of no real importance until after the slave trade started, and a work force to use them came into being... Pre 1600 only about half a million slaves had been transported - after that date the trade expanded considerably... 35% of all slaves were sent to Brazil (a Portugese speaking colony) and 22% went to Spanish speaking colonies...
See
http://www.slaverysite.com/Body/fact...%20figures.htm
There is no doubt that the machete developed for use in countries dominated by the Spanish and Portugese - but we still need to confirm where the first ones were made - in the home country or the colonies.... I do not know much about the early cutlasses, but it is possible large ships carried spare blades packed into boxes for handling as and when the need arose... Once in the New World these could have been used as tools rather than weapons. The machete blade, without a handle can similarly be closely packed for transport.
Another area for further reseach is the Sugar Trade - a wide variety of cane knives, some shaped like billhooks and some shaped like machetes exist... Columbus took cuttings of sugar cane on his voyage of 1492. Hispaniola had its first sugar harvest in 1501 and the Portugese had established sugar cane in Brazil by the early 16th century...
"Approximately 3,000 small mills built before 1550 in the New World created an unprecedented demand for cast iron gears, levers, axles and other implements. Specialist trades in mold-making and iron-casting developed in Europe due to the expansion of sugar production. Sugar mill construction developed technological skills needed for a nascent industrial revolution in the early 17th century."
Link:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_sugar
As well as machinery they needed tools for harvesting the cane...
Ref Collins tempering blades in lead - lead melts at 327.46 degrees Celsius - far too high a temperature for tempering steel (150 to 260 degrees) - it stays in a molten state long enough for steel to reach red heat, so could be used for heating steel prior to hardening (it boils at 1749 degrees). Tin however melts at 231.93 degrees, and lead tin alloys (commonly known as solders) reduce the melting point to 183 degrees, adding other metals (such as Bismuth) can lower the temperature as low as 95 degrees (in the 1950's you could buy trick spoons that melted in a cup of hot tea) - so lead/tin/bisimuth alloys could be used for tempering - but temperature control is critical a few degrees +/- can render a blade too hard and brittle or too soft to hold an edge....
As always, much more research is needed -less speculation and less apocryphal stories (hypotheses are OK if they can lead to answers being either supported or repudiated)