Link from pappenheimer to boca-de-caballo hilt

[midelburgo]

I have found that obsesion with "colonial" and "caribbean" Spanish swords before. I will copy myself from a previous post:

About the colonial description, we have to think that what makes nowadays differences between Hispanic America and Spain is that they have evolved in different ways since the early XIXth century. Often Hispanic America has kept characteristics from XVI to XVIIIth centuries that were also common in Spain once. Language is full of those. So it is often not easy to say that something is Colonial about a piece from the XVIIth century, because it could have been just the same at both sides of the Atlantic at its proper time.


For example the University of Mexico started working in 1551, and soon there were book presses everywhere. Of course we cannot forget the native substrate, but while this was crucial on the arts and the everyday living, it influenced little the military matters.
The swords I have shown are mostly from European (Spanish) collections. I have never seen a real Brescia hilt coming from a South America country, although probably they could be found in archeological sites (underwater specially). Officers used to return with their belongings, or they could stay.

The fact is that we have plenty of documentary data on the shipments of weapons to America in the XVIIIth century. Remember, Spain was extremely burocratic, and the archives have been kept up today. In the book I include below, some of the contracts for swords have been studied next to letters from the presidios with the opinions on Barcelona or Toledo blades.

In XVIIIth century there was precisely an obsesion with uniforms and regulated weaponry. Standardization was cheaper. Most of colonial America could have obsolete material, but irregular material will be found only in extremely backguard and isolated areas (Phillipines, New Mexico). This changed with the napoleonic invasion of the metropoli. That is the starting point for local made hilts and salvaged blades.

While I have tried to support my affirmations with similar examples and documentation, I understand there is a shortage of literature in English on this subject. Norman has scarce information on Spanish swords, and Brinckerhoff, who is focused on colonial weapons, when he did not find them in America recurred to the Madrid Army museum to fill the gap. None of them has a single image with these Brescia swords. But they are not rare at all. The metropolitan museum at NY has at least one (Sorry not image here):

https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collec...=80&pos=93

I give you now the catalogue of a Spanish collection at Sevilla. From page 128 to 143 and 163, 16 swords belong to this type. All of them are described as from the XVIIth century.

http://www.museosdeandalucia.es/docu...9-892f94075587

With that obsession on "colonial" you seem to give a greater relevance to the Apache, pirate or Araucanian guerrilla warfare, than to the continuous warfare going on in Europe between the Nine years War and the War of the Spanish Sucession (the period of use of the subject sword I estimate). Of course, that is what Holywood does. The first group consisted of fights with hundreds of soldiers involved, the second with tens of thousands.

The two swords included by M Eley have nothing to do with the one I have shown. The "espada ancha" is difficult to date, could be from the end of XVIIIth century, but the second one is a "chinaco" sword from the 1860s, used by the Mexican revolutionary partidas against emperor Maximilian.