This book is included in the Self Reliance Firearms & Weaponry section.
The Colonial Period (1600 to 1775) The Influence of Firearms THE Colonists in America were the greatest weapon using people of that epoch in the world. Everywhere the gun was more abundant than the tool. It furnished daily food; it maintained its owner's claims to the possession of his homestead among the aboriginal owners of the soil; it helped to win the mother country's wars for possession of the country as a whole. These facts alone raise the interesting questions of what the Colonists used for weapons and where they got them. Further, the ultimate outcome of all strife between the Colonists and other people was victory for the Colonists. While the Colonists may have been excellent fighters, operating in the main upon home ground, and while their wars with other white people were side issues of European wars and to a considerable extent dependent upon the outcome there, it is nevertheless a fact that a war is composed of two factors, only one of which is the combatants themselves. Every war and every battle is made of two factors: the strength, experience, and skill of the combatants have much to do with the issue; also so do the weapons with which they destroy each other. An investigation of the firearms of the early struggles in America yields various results. Besides the simple and direct one of rejuvenating a long lost knowledge are others of greater importance. Firearm makers of old were men of surprising ingenuity and artistic skill. Ingenious solutions of problems in form, balance, decoration, boring, grooving, throating, disposition of parts, mechanisms for turning, stopping, locking and unlocking, present to the inventor of to-day bases upon which to build again. Ornamentation by means of form, chiseling, engraving, embossing, openwork, gilding, inlaying with gold, silver, ivory, mother-of-pearl, so far surpassed anything attempted now that reference to the antique would be absolutely necessary in the production of a modern decoration of real merit. The immensity of the firearms industry of old is beyond the imagination of the uninitiated; it clearly indicates the necessity of studying the close relation between skill with arms and human progress. The money value of so great an industry had a strong influence upon the economics of the times, and needs attention in regard to the present and the future. Debatable aspects of history are clarified by the presentation of information hitherto neglected regarding weapons used in critical periods of decisive warfare; and history is enriched by the addition of facts connected with those antique implements which assisted in the spread of civilization, the growth of a new nation, and affected the totality of human progress. It is a matter of only three centuries since the present populous and highly civilized United States of America was one vast wilderness, not affected in any way by the few scattering settlements of white people from Europe who maintained a precarious existence in the midst of the native population of savages. Later, when the villages became thriving towns and the neighboring savages were greatly weakened in numbers and strength, England became ruler of the land. Then France, having possessions on the north and claiming the wilderness to the west, strove with England for what she possessed. In these French wars the Colonists became acquainted with each other, and of united sympathy and purpose. When England's rule was no longer acceptable they formed a league against her, and the struggle for freedom which began in 1775 terminated the Colonial period. The Colonial period, which was one of almost constant warfare yet also one of tremendous growth, divides into the period of skirmish and warfare with the Indians between 1607 and 1689, and the period of the French wars lasting from 1689 to 1763. The first settlers in the new country brought firearms presumably such as had seen long service which may have been made in any part of Europe except Russia. During the next generation arms began to be made in America, by European immigrant armorers, after European models. Thereafter firearms were made in increasing numbers in the American Colonies, and imported also in quantities, particularly from England and the Netherlands. When the wars with France were in progress English and French soldiers brought to America the military arms of their nations, and their officers brought the high-grade arms of celebrated European armorers. Firearms of America and of Europe are therefore intimately related in Colonial history. Beginning the period 1607 to 1689, the skirmishing between the earliest settlers and the Indians was on a small scale, partaking less of the nature of warfare than of the maintenance of individual rights. In addition to the personal property arms which guarded each man's fireside, each considerable settlement, as Jamestown, New Netherlands (New York and Albany), and Plymouth, possessed a stock of old arms held as common property. The early settlers with the exception of a very few persons of power or wealth at Jamestown and in New Netherlands, and Captain Miles Standish at Plymouth, who owned superior weapons were people of ordinary or poor circumstances, who used the cheapest firearm of the time, the matchlock gun, then made throughout civilized Europe. Matchlock arms were the cheapest because they were easiest to make, they were obsolete, and second- hand ones at reduced prices were abundant. They were still the principal military firearms, but as sporting weapons they had been superseded for fifty or seventy-five years. The name matchlock is compound, match being an abbreviation of slow-match, which was a slender rope treated in various ways so as to burn slowly without flame but with a persistent live coal, and the word lock, which in firearm phrase means firing mechanism. A match-lock was a mechanism on the side generally the right side of a gun barrel by which a hot coal on the end of a slow-match was held in the grip of a piece of curved metal called a serpentine, serpentine and coal together being moved to ignite the priming in the flash-pan by pressure on the trigger, and raised out of the flash-pan by the trigger-spring when the pressure was removed. In the early days of this mechanism the motion of the serpentine was towards the breech instead of towards the muzzle, the idea being to present the coal constantly to the view of the gunner, that he might keep it free of ash. When firing the gun soldiers were instructed to tip it so that the lock should be uppermost, with the barrel to one side, so that gravity should aid the connection between the priming powder in the pan and the powder in the barrel. This tipping of the barrel sideways hindered taking accurate aim, but that was a matter of no importance since the guns were not accurate, were fired only at short range, and were not commonly provided with sights. Fowling-pieces and other guns not considered to be strictly military weapons were supported by the hands and held with the butt against the thigh, waist, or shoulder, or gripped between the upper arm and the body, but full muskets were supported near the muzzle by the forked tip of a long iron rod, the other and sharp end of which was thrust into the ground. Although the musket was so heavy that the rest was useful, it was not absolutely necessary; its use was due to its requirement by the manual of arms, and the manual of arms was a survival of the time when guns were without locks and both of a soldier's hands had to be employed in the manipulation of the gun, match, pan, and priming. This general description applies, with the exceptions noted, to the arms in use in the early years of settlement. End of Preview
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