When the American frontier extended only to the western border of Kentucky and Tennessee, the cost of finished goods meant that people living on the frontier used almost any knife they could get their hands on. Patch knives and butcher knives aka 'scalping' knives were common. Scots came to America in large numbers just after 1700 and settled mostly in the Carolinas, bringing their personal weapon, the dirk. The dirk and dagger were widely carried by militia in the Revolutionary war in place of the bayonet or sword, along with the hatchet and tomahawk.
After seeing many original frontier and Native American knives in museums, one fact stands out to me. Until the Civil War, both frontiersmen and Native Americans residing west of the Mississippi River preferred to carry a large fighting knife in preference to any other hunting or utility knife - usually, a dagger or bowie pattern.
Until the appearance of mass-produced repeating handguns during and after the Civil War, the fighting knife was the preferred secondary weapon to the rifle, musket and shotgun. The impact of the Bowie knife can be seen at this time. After its appearance in the Old Southwest (Kentucky, Tennessee, Louisiana, Missisippi) , the large Bowie caused so much carnage that some jurisdictions banned its possession (Texas), use for self-defense (Tennessee) or prohibited the carrying of such knives as a concealed weapon (Tennessee, Louisiana, Mississippi).
After the Civil War, the fighting knife gradually fell out of use, with the notable exception of the Bowie. Because the Bowie could serve fairly well as a butchering and even a skinning knife, it remained fairly popular in the American West until the 1880s.
Indigenous Native American knives made prior to 1870 are almost exclusively dagger patterns. Despite being less well suited for tasks such as dressing game, it was apparently more important to the owner to prioritize his knife's usefulness in close combat.
