1680s French trade knife from wreck of the La Belle (TX)

The La Belle was one of two French vessels lost during the La Salle expedition to Texas during the 1680s. The ship was a cargo vessel filled with supplies for a French settlement and trade goods intended for the Amerindian population. The wreck site was identified in 1995, and the entire ship and it's remaining cargo were recovered during an archaeological project taking place in 1996-7. Roughly 1.8 million artefacts were recovered and reported in as part of the project. Most items were small glass beads, however, numerous iron axes and iron knives were part if the cargo.

Many of the iron remains were fragmentary, however, the interaction of salt-water and the ferrous metals resulted in the formation of encrustations that encapsulated the iron. Many of the iron items dissolved due to chemical interaction with the sea water, and the original contact surfaces of seawater, iron, and encapsulate, resulted in internal cavities. These cavities were discovered during lab conservation work when the nodules were x-rayed. The internal cavities were opened by drilling through the concretion and using the internal open spaces as a mold for injected resins. Attached is an example of two of the knife molds recovered, and used to create resin castings. The details of the castings are extremely good, and the reader can see what a French trade knife looked like. Wooden handles and knife scales survived intact, and the ones from the castings were not wood or bone. To my eye,  the handles appear to be crudely shaped wrought iron.

Although the date of the wreck is from the late 1680's, there is a considerable amount of material goods that bear directly on items intended for the North American trade. The knives seen in the castings may come as a surprise to some who are used to those made during the era of the Industrial Revolution in north and northwestern Europe. These knives are French, not the English style typical of eastern North America.

The attached image file/pdf comes from the 2017 book by Bruseth et al, on the archaeology of the La Belle.