Why did NATIVE AMERICANS use BRITISH SWORDS?

What if I told you that in addition to things like tomahawks and war clubs, Native Americans also sometimes had swords? Sometimes even British swords. And in fact that there's a specific reason why they should end up with British swords. Hi folks, Matt Easton here, scholar gladiator and Eastern Antique Arms. Now I love Native American weaponry and culture. I've actually been fascinated with it since I was a kid. But, and you may have noticed that from some of the videos that I make, but I had an email recently from a guy called Ephraim, and massive thanks. I love it when viewers email me in things, specifically when it leads to research, which leads to a video like this. Now they had found a video online showing a bunch of Native American warriors and chiefs with various types of weapon for the most part, and in one of these images it showed a person with a saber. Now at first sight that saber looked very much like one of these, and I had to question first of all, is this actually the Prussian version? So first thing to do was to search where the original image came from, and here it is. I found it, and it's actually contained in the University of Michigan's digital library, and it features someone who they describe as Medicine I hope I've pronounced that correctly, who is or who was the chief of the upper Yanktonia Sioux. So we have to take that at face value and assume that that's correct. Now looking at this saber, it's very easy to see that it has the same general shape as a British 1796 light cavalry saber. However there's some details about it which are a little bit different. One we can see that the rear quill on is particularly curly, secondly we can see that the langets are quite wide, and thirdly we can see that the p-shaped knuckle bow as here is particularly exaggerated. Now sometimes those features could lead us to conclude that this is actually a Prussian, probably Solingen made, but Prussian light cavalry either officer or trooper's saber. However I don't think it is because of those langets. Those langets actually make me think of certain types of British light cavalry officer and sometimes militia officers, so infantry officers sabers, that date to the 1790s, obviously after 1796, so the late 1790s right the way through to about 1815. And actually based on what I can see here, I believe it to be a British, probably infantry, but maybe cavalry officer's saber of around 1810 to 1820. And a point of minor interest as well, he's also got a Colt, what looks like to me a Colt 1861. I don't know whether it's the army or the navy, that would be the difference in caliber between 0.44 or 0.36, we don't know, but it definitely from the shape of the frame there that is a Colt 1861. So the question is how could this Native American chief have ended up with a British cavalry officer's sword? Well I have a potential answer to that, but first of all we should quickly mention that we actually see other swords actually held by Native American warriors and chiefs in other photographs. We sometimes see, in fact the most common type is a saber, usually the American model 1860, sometimes the model 1840, but the American cavalry saber. And these were referred to as long knives by Native Americans and they were obviously high status objects and weapons as well, so if they could get hold of them and particularly wear them as status objects they might not always use them in war, they might prefer to use a spear or tomahawk, a rifle and a revolver and things like this, but these swords were definitely status items. And in one rare occasion we actually see a Native American holding a Japanese sword, we don't know how that came about at all, but usually they're American swords. So how could it be that a Native American warrior, in this case potentially a chief, is holding a British sword? Well there's a couple of potential answers. So one potential answer is that this was just simply something taken off at some point in history, an American officer, because frankly American officers sometimes imported British swords. Now we have to bear in mind that this sword dates to about the time of the War of 1812. Now around this time, although obviously the Americans were at war with the British and Canadians because the Americans had instigated a war, they tried to invade Canada, what kind of crazy person would do that? They failed, but ultimately there were lots of British swords in circulation on both sides. So obviously the British and the Canadians had British swords, but lots of American officers also had British swords, either because they had bought them and imported them before the War of 1812, and this is a tradition that goes all the way back to the Revolutionary Wars as well of the late 1700s. But in addition to that they could also obviously capture British swords. So if British officers were captured, killed, wounded, surrendered, whatever, their swords could end up in American service. So firstly, Native Americans who had interacted either through war or trade with Americans could have ended up with a British sword from Americans. But there is another tantalizing and kind of to me exciting possibility for how a British sword of this period, the early 1800s, could have ended up in the hands of a Native American chief. So in the late 1700s and early 1800s, relationships weren't really great between the United States and Britain, and Canada in fact, Canada being an extension of Britain at this point, and such that the British many times allied with Native Americans against the United States. In fact, in many ways we could say that this was pivotal in actually maintaining the independence of Canada. Now Tecumseh's alliance with the British is particularly interesting to this point because his alliance with them was around the War of 1812, around the time that this sword dates to and around this time that the sword that we see in this image dates to. Now Tecumseh's confederacy of different Native American tribes meant that it's entirely possible due to his alliance with the British, and the British were supplying weapons, they were supplying ammunition, all sorts of stuff, so that the Native American confederacy under Tecumseh could help the British fight against the Americans and ultimately maintain Canada's independence as an independence country from the American aggressors. And in this situation there were obviously diplomatic gifts given. So this is purely conjecture and I have nothing to prove this at all, but here we have a Native American chief much much later in the late 1800s who's holding a British sword from around the time of 1812 at a time when the British were making lots of alliances with Native American tribes and confederations. I have a hunch that that's when this sword came into the Americas. It's one theory, it's not the only one. I've given some other examples here, but there we go. It's a fascinating example from history and you know it just widens I think our perspective of how some sort of politics and interdimensional relationships were happening during military history in this period. It's a fascinating period and something we should pay more attention to. Anyway I hope you've enjoyed seeing this. Thanks again to my contributor Ephraim who sent this in because I probably, I don't think I've ever seen this image before. I've seen other images of Native Americans with swords but I don't think I've seen this one so I really appreciate it. I hope you've enjoyed watching it. Please give me a like, check that you're subscribed because more than half of people watching my videos aren't subscribed and I'm closing in on half a million subscribers so it really means a lot to me and really helps the channel. Thanks a lot for watching I'll see you back on the channel really soon. Cheers folks! Thanks for watching we've got extra videos on Patreon. 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