Ethnographic Arms & Armour - View Single Post - weapons/fighting styles of the ohio/mississippi flatboatmen (1790-1840)?

pallas · 6th September 2009, 07:56 PM

ive lately been fascinated by the flatboatmen who plied the ohio and missisippi rivers in the last decade of the 18th/first 4 decades of the 19th century carrying settlers, booze, contraband and other assorted items/goods from pittsburg to natchez/new orleans and back.....these men seem to have been known for their "free for all" fighting and skills with the tomahawk and kentucky rifle.....they also had a peculiar way of offering a challenge of combat by making longwinded statements of their prowess in fighting or navigating rivers...like:

"Whoo-oop! I’m the old original iron-jawed, brass-mounted, copper-bellied corpse-maker from the wilds of Arkansaw!—Look at me! I’m the man they call Sudden Death and General Desolation! Sired by a hurricane, dam’d by an earthquake, half-brother to the cholera, nearly related to the small-pox on the mother’s side! Look at me! I take nineteen alligators and a bar’l of whiskey for breakfast when I’m in robust health, and a bushel of rattlesnakes and a dead body when I’m ailing! I split the everlasting rocks with my glance, and I squench the thunder when I speak! Whoo-oop!"

taken from mark twain's "life on the mississippi"

mike fink seemed to be the best known of these men and its not even agreed upon if he was indeed real or legend.....

anyways im in an early american history kind of mood and i figured this might be an intersting topic to touch upon.....

6th September 2009, 07:56 PM	#1
pallas Member Join Date: Oct 2008 Posts: 53	weapons/fighting styles of the ohio/mississippi flatboatmen (1790-1840)? ive lately been fascinated by the flatboatmen who plied the ohio and missisippi rivers in the last decade of the 18th/first 4 decades of the 19th century carrying settlers, booze, contraband and other assorted items/goods from pittsburg to natchez/new orleans and back.....these men seem to have been known for their "free for all" fighting and skills with the tomahawk and kentucky rifle.....they also had a peculiar way of offering a challenge of combat by making longwinded statements of their prowess in fighting or navigating rivers...like: "Whoo-oop! I’m the old original iron-jawed, brass-mounted, copper-bellied corpse-maker from the wilds of Arkansaw!—Look at me! I’m the man they call Sudden Death and General Desolation! Sired by a hurricane, dam’d by an earthquake, half-brother to the cholera, nearly related to the small-pox on the mother’s side! Look at me! I take nineteen alligators and a bar’l of whiskey for breakfast when I’m in robust health, and a bushel of rattlesnakes and a dead body when I’m ailing! I split the everlasting rocks with my glance, and I squench the thunder when I speak! Whoo-oop!" taken from mark twain's "life on the mississippi" mike fink seemed to be the best known of these men and its not even agreed upon if he was indeed real or legend..... anyways im in an early american history kind of mood and i figured this might be an intersting topic to touch upon.....