The Frontier Partisans Podcast

Jim Bridger, an orphan, apprenticed to a master gunsmith, answers an advertisement in a newspaper — and launches one of the most storied careers in frontier history.  Additional reading: Jim Bridger: Trailblazer of the American West by Jerry Enzler Did Jim Bridger Abandon Hugh Glass? http://hughglass.org/jim-bridger/ You can now support The Frontier Partisans Blog and Podcast through Patreon: http...

Having defected from the American Patriot cause in 1778, the Frontier Partisan Simon Girty became a successful operative and agent of the British Indian Department, rallying native warriors and accompanying them in raids and major expeditions against the American frontier. Though he worked to save American captives, a black legend would evolve around his name, making him the most hated man on the...

Simon Girty had built a reputation as an ace scout and frontiersman, a skilled interpreter and diplomat. His career seemed like it was on an upward arc — but the conflicts of the American Revolution would force Girty to make an irrevocable decision... one that would make him the most notorious figure in American frontier history. You can now support The Frontier Partisans Blog and Podcast through...

Simon Girty is perhaps the most notorious figure in American  frontier history. A noted scout and interpreter, he defected to the British in 1778, at the height of the American Revolution and helped to lead native warriors against American settlements in western Pennsylvania, Virginia and Kentucky. This earned him the status of traitor and renegade — but the story is far more complex than a "good...

Rob Roy MacGregor is a legendary folk hero of the Scottish Highlands. The real story is less noble than the legend — but the legend persists. Because we know that the stories we WANT to believe are the stories that last. You can now support The Frontier Partisans Blog and Podcast through Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/frontierpartisans Music: Blue Frontier by Jim Cornelius Graphics by Lynn Woodw...

The Highland Scots and their descendants were major players in the North American Fur Trade. While some of them were ruthless, hard-driving captains of industry, others integrated with Indian peoples, developing a hybrid culture that — for a time — represented what one historian calls "an alternative form of American development."  You can now support The Frontier Partisans Blog and Podcast throug...

Just a few short years after the Highland Clans were crushed at the Battle of Culloden Moor, Clansmen were fighting in the wilderness of North America — on behalf of the British Empire. How and why did the Highlanders become some of the most effective soldiers of the Hanoverian Kings? You can now support The Frontier Partisans Blog and Podcast through Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/frontierparti...

The English and Lowland Scots regarded Highlanders as a wild, barbarous people on the northern frontier. A robust, martial culture, with their own language and a distinctive clan system, the highlanders lived outside the centralizing sphere of the Scottish and English state. in the 17th and 18th centuries, the state would impose "civilization" on the Highlanders _ with fire and sword. You can now...

An introduction to Series II of The Frontier Partisans Podcast, exploring the history and lore of the Highland Scots. The Highlanders were a warrior culture on the frontiers of north Britain. With the crushing of the Clans at Culloden Moor in 1746, Highlanders were dispersed to the other frontiers of the British Empire, becoming an integral part of the fur trade on the frontiers of North America. ...

An interview by Ceili Cornelius rounding up Jim Cornelius' take on Kit Carson's life and legacy. Recommended books: Dear Old Kit — memoir annotated by Harvey Carter A Life Wild and Perilous: Mountain Men and the Paths to the Pacific by Robert Utley Give Your Heart To The Hawks: A Tribute to the Mountain Men by Winfred Blevins Kit Carson and his Three Wives: A Family History by Mark Simmons Kit Car...

Mountain Man, scout and explorer Kit Carson served as an American soldier in the Mexican-American War, the Civil War, and in campaigns against the nomadic raiders of the American Southwest. His leadership of the 1863-64 campaign against the Navajo remains controversial and casts a shadow over his legacy to this day... Music: "Blue Frontier" by Jim Cornelius Graphics by Lynn Woodward, Woodward Crea...

As his time as a Mountain Man drew to a close, Kit Carson would sign on to guide the exploratory expeditions of U.S. Army officer John C. Fremont. His role with Fremont would make him the most famous frontiersman of his era. Music: "Blue Frontier" by Jim Cornelius Graphics: Lynn Woodward, Woodward Creative

A teenaged Kit Carson ran way from his apprenticeship as a saddle maker in Missouri. He took the Santa Fe Trail to Taos in the New Mexico territory and eventually signed on with a fur trapping expedition that would shape him into a Mountain Man. Music: "Blue Frontier" by Jim Cornelius Graphics: Lynn Woodward, Woodward Creative

The Scots-Irish were a frontier people. Hailing from the contested borderlands of England and Scotland, they migrated in the 17th Century to Ulster (Northern Ireland); and many then moved on to the North American backcountry in one of the great folk migrations of the 18th Century. Tough, resilient, restless and often violent, they formed the dominant culture on the Trans-Appalachian Frontier. Thes...

An introduction to the world of the Frontier Partisans.