Homesteading in 1622

I found this on-line tonight, and thought I  would share it.

Interesting to see what as considered "must have gear" in a life or death homesteading situation.

A bit hard to be sure,
But didn't see any of what I consider two of the most important tools. Knives and a draw knife.

Please, where did you find it?

Jim Fry wrote:A bit hard to be sure,
But didn't see any of what I consider two of the most important tools. Knives and a draw knife.

Jim,

I agree with you.

Maybe knife was so near universal a carry item that it went unsaid. At that point, folding pocket knives were available, but the average, very poor, guy seeking to cross would probably have had some sort of laborers knife. Maybe. Those homesteaders would have been on crowded ships for a while, and knives wouldn't have been packed away into the hold. The homesteading men would often have women with them, and there would have been trouble with the sailors. Maybe knives (and the very expensive pistols the average guy wouldn't have)  weren't mentioned for a reason.  

As to the draw knife, that's a tool for those working decent sized wood. The people seeking to cross didn't have daily access to workable wood. The elites owned all the trees. The commoners generally couldn't hunt, gather transferable materials for building, etc. I do see a froe on that list, although the spelling is different.

You can still see the difference access and casual use of wood makes to equipment in the difference between Western European and American outdoorsman/hunters/infantry soldiers. Europeans, in my direct experience, will often find the larger American/South American knives "excessive".  One of the reasons is they don't process a lot of raw materials with their Moras and SAKs.

Maybe the guild nature of woodworking with the Carpentry Country kept the draw knife a rarer implement in England than on this side of the Atlantic, but that's just a guess.  Also, England restricted a lot of manufacturing technology in the colonies. Maybe draw knives were part of that.

I would certainly have done anything required to have a draw knife, because a draw knife means a much better self bow, faster, and a handy bow means meat and fish without depleting my shot- but again, these people weren't hunters, mostly.

I bet you've read this:

John C Daley wrote:Please, where did you find it?

John,

Came across it on Reddit, of all places. I found it as a recommended post attached to a woodworking post.

I am sorry that I cannot provide a more specific origin.

Take care,
Jeff

I would bet the native people whose land the Europeans were coming to occupy would be perplexed by all these “needs”, but then again they had millennia of cultural adaptations and their community to work with.

That is really cool, Jeff. I wonder if it functioned like the advertisements or catalogs of our day, trying to sell more things than was absolutely necessary? On the other hand, the people traveling from England didn't know exactly what they needed. It would be a bit like moving to the moon today. You want to bring everything that you might need, and there is no way to know everything that you need until you get there.

When reading old documents, sometimes the "S"s were printed like "f"s. And this printer used the letter "u" for "v". If you keep these substitutions in mind you can probably read it.

I was surprised by the number of hoes and axes that it recommends. "Five broad hoes, 5 felling axes." Then I saw that the tool quantities were recommended for a family of five. Even making provision for breakage and loss, that is quite a bit of duplication. So they weren't thinking that one or two people would be felling trees at a time. They were thinking that four or five people would be felling trees at a time. Probably all day, for months or years.

Jeremy VanGelder wrote:I was surprised by the number of hoes and axes that it recommends. "Five broad hoes, 5 felling axes." Then I saw that the tool quantities were recommended for a family of five. Even making provision for breakage and loss, that is quite a bit of duplication. So they weren't thinking that one or two people would be felling trees at a time. They were thinking that four or five people would be felling trees at a time. Probably all day, for months or years.

They would have had to all pitch in for the basic shelter and gardens to get through the first winter. Maybe one or two people could do the daily needs for like firewood and weeding later, but not when you start from just a piece of raw land with winter on the way.

I should’ve mentioned, that is a very cool document, thanks for sharing!
The land I live on has had Tolowa people continuously inhabiting it for 10,000yrs, though their borders undoubtedly shifted with conflicts with neighboring Yurok and other tribes. Unfortunately this tribe was subjected to one of the worst genocides in American history, knocking the population down to 24 people in the mid 1800s. They have recovered population, but much of their land has been kept out of their stewardship and has suffered greatly for it.

Jim Fry wrote:A bit hard to be sure,
But didn't see any of what I consider two of the most important tools. Knives and a draw knife.

I fuppose one could fimply ufe one's fword...