Espada ancha

[Jim McDougall]

Hi Robert,
Thank you so much for responding!
These very nice examples you have posted indeed represent the types of weapons I had mentioned in the Phillipines, and though not directly 'espada anchas', they do illustrate the Spanish influence on these weapons.
The example with the interesting finger ring is typically identified as a 'Central American dirk' and as part of the Spanish Colonial influence sphere ( Levines, revised 4th Ed.1997, p.461, A.8).

The Spanish Colonial heading covers a vast part of the globe, and thier colonization and trade naturally accounts for the diffusion and influence of weapons of many forms throughout the 17th-19th centuries. It seems that a great deal of misconception and misidentification is relatively common due to the often shallow understanding of the dynamics of this important history.

I am hoping that others here might join in this discussion so that we can learn more on this topic, not only on the espada ancha, which is associated primarily with New Spain and Mexico, but Spanish Colonial weapons which were often influenced by them.

Thank you so much for your very pertinant examples!

All the best,
Jim