[Jim McDougall]

Fernando thank you for the interpreted material from Calvo, that explains a lot of what I had presumed toward the Guanabacoa term as well as the machete Cubanos term. It does seem there was some Spanish production as you note the Toledo reference which Marc also specified some years ago.

It seems a lot of these swords were essentially forerunners of what became broadly termed machetes, and it seems that was primarily their function, the clearing of heavy undergrowth and vegetation in these tropical climes.

The 'Berber' sabres described in the OP, with the curious and distinctive hilts were typically with repurposed cavalry blades, which I have always thought in the way many were reprofiled at the tips. These to me seemed the resemble the blade point of kampilans or other such Philippines and archipelago weapons . That feature seemed to offer support for such influence from those regions and carried across the Spanish Main. That 'clipped' feature seems apparent on some of the 'Cubano' machete versions.


On the 'Berber' sabres, they had scabbards with a perpendicular protrusion at the end, which I was told was to hold the scabbard as the blade was withdrawn. Presumably it was often difficult with high humidity and heat as is the case with leather 'sweating'.
This noted pragmatism as well as weapons intended as machetes would seem to negate such designs for Moroccan regions as clearly this is not a tropical clime with such profuse vegetation. Some desert areas such as the Sonora of N. Mexico have dense undergrowth and chaparral, which was the main purpose of the espada ancha, but I do not think Morocco has that.

In the attached photos, the top is one of the 'Berber' sabres which has the M1796 blade reprofiled at the tip in the manner I described, and the scabbard has the protrusion remaining only partially in its base.
The museum case was in Barcelona and shows these along with an espada ancha.