Homemade broadheads

[Mortblanc]

Native Americans had several favored items for making broadheads, the most favored being barrel hoops.

Iron trade heads were popular giveaway items during negotiations and blacksmiths forged heads and sold them to the government trade houses. They were difficult to move because no one wanted them. The use of bows disappeared with the frontier as it moved west.

As soon as contact with Europeans occurred the Indians were after GUNS as their ultimate hunting tool. By 1625 the Iroquois elders were complaining that the men had lost the skill of knapping and no one could make stone points any longer. By the 1650s the Cherokee had a consistant trade line going between the eastern mountains and Spanish Florida trading Spanish guns for deerskins.

Only the very poorest and most backward of the Indian tribes continued the use of the bow after trade goods appeared.