PODCAST · history
The Frontier Partisans Podcast
by frontierpartisans
History, legends and lore of the Adventurers, Rangers and Scouts who fought the battles of Empire...
Episodes
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Episode 67 — The American Revolution on the Frontier — The Burning of the Valleys
The American patriots believed they had dealt a crippling blow to the Iroquois in the Sullivan Expedition of 1779, which had destroyed villages and crops across the Seneca Country. But as 1780 dawned, Iroquois and Loyalist raiders were already out looking for payback. The British would launch...
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Episode 66 — The American Revolution on the Frontier — The Sullivan Expedition
In 1779, in response to the devastating Loyalist/Iroquois raids on the New York/Pennsylvania frontier, General George Washington carved off four brigades of the Continental Army to form a punitive expedition against the Iroquois under the overall command of General John Sullivan. Committing a…
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Episode 65 — The American Revolution on the Frontier — The Battle of Wyoming
A British Loyalist & Iroquois force conducted a major deep-penetration raid into the Wyoming Valley in the northeast corner of Pennsylvania in the summer of 1778. A pitched battle with American militia forces would result in what has gone down in history as the Wyoming Massacre. Support the...
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Episode 64 — The American Revolution On The Frontier — Bloody Mohawk
The Mohawk Valley in western Upstate New York was a savage theater of war — a civil war within the larger Revolutionary War. It kicked off in earnest with the deadliest battle of the Revolution — in fact, one of the deadliest battles in American military history — the Battle of Oriskany, fought…
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Episode 63 — The American Revolution On The Frontier — Allegheny Uprising
The slow-burning powder train that led to the explosion of the American Revolution in 1775 is usually traced back to the Stamp Act of 1765. But there was another protest that took place in 1765 — in the Pennsylvania backcountry; land that had been a bloody battleground in the French & Indian War...
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Episode 62 — The American Revolution On The Frontier — Introduction
The frontier theater of the American Revolution is often seen as a sideshow of a greater conflict that birthed a new nation and fundamentally changed people’s relationship to government. But in a very real sense, the frontier was the decisive theater, both in creating the conditions and...
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Episode 61 — Warren Angus Ferris — Man of the Mountain Land
Warren Angus Ferris spent six years as a Mountain Man — and left behind a vivid account of his days in the Rocky Mountains. Further reading: Life in the Rocky Mountains: A Diary of Wanderings on the Sources of the Rivers Missouri, Columbia, and Colorado, 1830-1835 Land is the Cry!: Warren Angus...
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Episode 60 — Tales of the Rangers — Part X — The Mier Expedition
In 1842, Texans staged a punitive expedition down to the Rio Grande, in retaliation for a Mexican incursion into San Antonio. Things went badly. Very badly. Further reading: Soldiers of Misfortune: The Somerville and Mier Expeditions, by Sam W. Haynes Intro music: Dead Man Walking, Justin…
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Episode 59 — Tales of the Rangers — Part IX — Bigfoot & Conan
In 1932, Robert E. Howard created his most enduring and popular character — Conan the Cimmerian. Part of Conan’s DNA came from the legendary Texas Ranger Bigfoot Wallace. This episode explores that connection: Further reading: Beyond the Black River by Robert E. Howard On An Underwood No. 5 —...
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Episode 58 — Tales of the Rangers Part VIII — Captain McNelly and the Las Cuevas War
Captain Leander H. McNelly and 26 Texas Rangers crossed the Rio Grande to recover a herd of stolen cattle in November of 1875. They were defying the odds — and international law. McNelly had a mission, and he was willing to risk his own life, the lives of his Rangers, and war with Mexico to...
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Episode 57 — Tales of the Rangers Part VII — War on the Nueces Strip
Leander McNelly — a “puny” consumptive with exceptional drive and martial prowess — recruited 41 men to form a Special Force of Texas Rangers to take on rampant banditry in the Nueces Strip in South Texas in 1875. It was more a counterinsurgency mission than a law enforcement operation, and it...
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Episode 56 — Tales of the Rangers, Part VI — The Road to Mexico City
In 1847, General Winfield Scott landed an American Army at the port of Veracruz and pushed west to take Mexico City. The Texas Rangers under Col. John Coffee Hays were tasked with counter-guerrilla operations to keep the vital supply line between Veracruz and Mexico City open. Sources: Mixed...
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Episode 55 — Tales of the Rangers, Part V — Ben McCulloch
Ben McCulloch was a Tier 1 Frontier Partisan — a highly capable scout and spy, and an outstanding combat leader. He was also an ardent pro-slavery Southern patriot, who died in battle in service of the Confederate States of America. All that makes him... complicated... for folks in the 21st...
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Episode 54 — Tales of the Rangers, Part IV — Mustang Gray
Mabry B. Gray — known to history and legend as Texas Ranger Mustang Gray — is the avatar of the dark side of the Ranging Way of War. If John Stark of Rogers Rangers represents the tough but honorable ideal of a Ranger, Mustang Gray represents the vicious, vengeful, natural-born killer element,...
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Episode 53 — Tales of the Rangers, Part III — Tougher Than Leather
Tougher than leather — that’s Cicero Rufus Perry. He started riding with the Texas Rangers in his teens, in the 1830s, when the new nation of Texas was locked in a two-front war with Mexicans along the border and Comanches to the west and north. He rode with many of the great men of that…
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Episode 52 — Tales of the Rangers, Part II — The Captivity of John Stark
John Stark was a badass — a real-deal American hero, born and bred on the New England Frontier. He served as second-in-command of Rogers Rangers in the French and Indian War, led a frontier-bred contingent of New Hampshire militias to Boston, where they hammered the British Army with devastating...
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Episode 51 — Tales of the Rangers — Lovewell’s Fight
The first in the series Tales of the Rangers recounts a savage firefight between a party of New England rangers led by Captain John Lovewell, and Abenaki warriors led by their renowned war captain, Paugus, in the Maine woods on May 8 or May 9, 1725. Sources: Lovewell’s Fight: War, Death and…
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Episode 50 — The Mexican Game of Thrones, Part VI — Better To Die On Your Feet Than Live On Your Knees
Behind my office chair at The Nugget is a large poster portrait of Emiliano Zapata. The Mexican Revolutionary’s hard eyes gaze out over the snowdrift of papers on my desk, his magnificent mustache bristling, haloed by his massive sombrero, a bandolier of cartridges across his chest. Most folks…
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Episode 49 — The Mexican Game of Thrones, Part V — Pancho Villa’s Last Ride
In 1920, after a decade of revolutionary struggle, Pancho Villa surrendered. He retired to the hacienda of Canutillo in Durango, Mexico, with a bodyguard of his faithful Dorados. For three years, he lived a peaceful life. That life came to an end on July 20, 1923, when a hit squad shot up his…
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Episode 48 — The Mexican Game of Thrones, Part IV — The Epic Fall of Pancho Villa
In December 1914, Pancho Villa and his Division del Norte were the mightiest force in Mexico. By the summer of 1915, the Division del Norte had been smashed and Villa was reduced to guerrilla warfare against his hated rival Venustiano Carranza — and against the United States. Support The Frontier...
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Episode 47 — The Mexican Game of Thrones, Part III — The Rise of Pancho Villa
When Victoriano Huerta staged a coup and murdered President Francisco Madero in February 1913, Pancho Villa crossed the border with eight men, bent on revenge. Within weeks, he had built a powerful army that would storm down the rail lines and sweep Huerta from power. Support The Frontier…
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Episode 46 — The Mexican Game of Thrones Part II — Pascual Orozco: Hero & Traitor
Pascual Orozco led Francisco Madero’s forces in the decisive 1911 victory at the Battle of Ciudad Juarez — a battle the vacillating Madero didn’t want to fight. The victory ensured the fall of the regime of Porfirio Diaz and the ascendency of Madero to the presidency of Mexico. Support The…
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Episode 45 — The Mexican Game of Thrones Part I — The Coming of the Revolution
In 1910, Porfirio Diaz turned 80 years old. He had ruled Mexico for three decades, and had modernized his country and centralized political power. But “progress” had come ate the expense of massive social discontent — and a storm was brewing that would sweep the Porfiriato away. Support The...
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Episode 44 — King Philip’s War Part VII — Apocalypse 1676
Wrapping up the Frontier Partisans Podcast Series on King Philip’s War, it is apparent that the war was a catastrophe for Puritan New England — and an apocalypse for the native peoples of southern New England. Nathaniel Philbrick’s Mayflower: A Story of Courage, Community and War is highly…
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Episode 43 — King Philip’s War Part VI — Capt. Benjamin Church & The Endgame
In the summer of 1676, Metacomet fled south from central Massachusetts, back to his homeland in Rhode Island’s Mount Hope Peninsula. Captain Benjamin Church, sidelined by wounds, got back into the fight, leading a contingent of native warriors and English soldiers in a strategic manhunt that…
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Episode 42 — King Philip’s War Part V — The Turning of the Tide
As the spring 1676 campaign season gets underway, the Puritan settlements of New England are reeling — but the fundamental weaknesses of the native insurgency are starting to show. Source material: Flintlock & Tomahawk: New England in King Philip’s War, by Douglas Edward Leach. Despite a clear…
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Episode 41 — King Philip’s War — Part IV — The Great Swamp Fight
The United Colonies attack a fortified Narragansett camp deep in a frozen swamp in Rhode Island, in a preemptive wintertime 1675 strike. Support The Frontier Partisans Blog and Podcast through Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/frontierpartisans Music: Blue Frontier by Jim Cornelius Graphics by…
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Episode 40 — King Philip’s War — Part III — The War Spreads
The Nipmuc jump into the fray and lash the Massachusetts Bay Colony furiously. Ambush tactics play hell with the colonial militias through the summer and fall of 1675, and settlements up and down the Connecticut River are attacked, abandoned and destroyed. For further reading: “Flintlock &...
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Episode 39 — King Philip’s War — Part II — First Blood
The primed musket of conflict finally goes off, with devastating impact on the Plymouth Colony community of Swansea. This episode lays out the strategic and tactical advantages and disadvantages held by the Wampanoag and Puritan settler combatants, and describes the way a conflict that might have...
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Episode 38 — King Philip’s War — Part I
When the Pilgrims landed in Plymouth in 1620, they found allies and partners in the Wampanoag people. For a generation that alliance was beneficial to both peoples. But by 1675, the partnership had broken down and the Wampanoag and the Plymouth settlers found themselves on teh brink of war. Works...
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Episode 37 — Once Upon A Time in Los Angeles, Part VI — Tiburcio Vasquez: A Corrido of Dust and Dreams
Tiburcio Vasquez was a rock star. He had everything that a bandit needs to become a folk hero. He was handsome and charismatic, a swashbuckler who carried an air of daring and danger — but he could plausibly claim that he’d never taken a life. He could — and did — claim to be a rebel fighting for...
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Episode 36 — Once Upon A Time in Los Angeles, Part V — The Killing of Sheriff James Barton
The ambush slaying of Sheriff James R. Barton and three of his deputies in January of 1857 was the worst act of violence against law enforcement in Los Angeles history until the Newhall Incident of 1970, when four highway patrolmen were gunned down during a traffic stop north of the city. The...
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Episode 35 — Once Upon A Time in Los Angeles, Part IV — A Tangled Web of Villainy
The story of the murder of cowboy and ranchero John Rains has all of the classic elements of LA Noir crime fiction — greed, dysfunctional families, foul murder and wild gunplay. Only this tale took place in the 1860s, when Los Angeles was a wild frontier town. Support The Frontier Partisans Blog...
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Episode 34 — Once Upon A Time in Los Angeles, Part III — Horse Stealin’
The Spanish ranchos of Southern California bred some of the finest horses to be found in North America. this made them a target for freebooting Mountain Men and Indians, who raided the ranchos and drove off thousands of horses across the Mojave Desert to sell into the ravenous markets of the...
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Episode 33 — Once Upon A Time In Los Angeles — Part II — The Lynching of David Brown
If anyone ever deserved hanging, it was David Brown. A scalphunter with the notorious Glanton Gang, David Brown survived the gang’s demise and continued his career of violent mayhem in 1850s Los Angeles. One murder too many put him at the end of a hangman’s rope. Here’s a link to a fine musical...
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Episode 32 — Once Upon A Time In Los Angles — Part I/Introduction
Los Angeles is steeped in real-deal frontier history — it’s just buried under acres of cement in what L.A. writer D.J. Waldie called “the landscape of amnesia.” So join me and let’s rip up some cement and rattle the bones of the Frontier Partisan history that lies beneath it. Support The Frontier...
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Episode 31 — The Filibusters, Part III — The Jameson Raid
The Jameson Raid, which took place at the turn of the year 1895/96, in the Transvaal in Southern Africa, was one of the most spectacular military cock-ups of all time. The Raiders, who had the backing of the imperialist diamonds-and-gold magnate Cecil Rhodes, and the tacit support of British...
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Episode 30 — The Filibusters, Part II — A Dreamer of the Day
William Walker dreamed imperial dreams, and thousands would die amid the destruction his visions wrought in Mexico and Nicaragua. Including him. Ultimately, his dream would end at the rifle muzzles of a Honduran firing squad. Support The Frontier Partisans Blog and Podcast through Patreon:...
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Episode 29 — The Filibusters I — Spawned By The Frontier
Filibuster is a corruption of a Dutch word meaning “freebooter.” As in buccaneer. As in semi-piratical adventurer. Filibustering is a privately raised and funded military expedition into a country with which America was at peace, for the purpose of fomenting revolution and/or secession. The...
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Episode 28 — Pontiac’s War V — Endgame
There’s no dramatic season finale to Pontiac’s War — and no clear winner, either. The British Empire was able to not only retain but fully secure its new holdings in the interior of North America — but they were forced to reassess their policies toward the native peoples and reverse or mitigate…
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Episode 27 — Pontiac’s War IV — The Horrors of War
Pontiac’s War took on a different character in the forests of western Pennsylvania — territory the British colonists thought of as “the backcountry,” while the Delaware, Shawnee and Mingo of the Ohio Country saw it as lands that had been lost to them — and the edge of an encroaching frontier. The...
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Episode 26 — Pontiac’s War Part III — The Siege of Fort Detroit
Pontiac’s forces besiege Fort Detroit. Treachery and bloody firefights and ambushes ensue. The war that would shape the North American frontier is underway in earnest. Support The Frontier Partisans Blog and Podcast through Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/frontierpartisans Music: Blue Frontier…
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Episode 25— Pontiac’s War — The Posts Fall
The Siege of Detroit begins, and British posts fall like dominos through the Great Lakes and Illinois Country. Support The Frontier Partisans Blog and Podcast through Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/frontierpartisans Music: Blue Frontier by Jim Cornelius Graphics by Lynn Woodward, Woodward Creative
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Episode 24 — Pontiac’s War — An Introduction
Victorious in the French & Indian War, Great Britain sought to assert its dominance over the interior of North America. The Indian peoples of the region did not see themselves as a conquered people. As British officials sought to reset terms of trade relationships, trouble began brewing — trouble...
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Episode 23 — Frederick Russell Burnham — Gold Rush, War and Fortune
After tragedy in Rhodesia, Frederick Russell Burnham and his family pulled up stakes and sought fortune in the Klondike Gold Rush of 1897-98. But the quest for fortune would be interrupted by the trumpet call of war, and Brunham would return to Africa to serve as Chief of Scouts for the British...
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Episode 22 — Frederick Russell Burnham — The Matabele Wars
Frederick Russell Burnham dreamed of Africa. In 1893, he and his wife Blanche and their young son Roderick set out to make those dreams a reality — and they rode straight into war. Further reading: Scouting On Two Continents — Frederick Russell Burnham A Splendid Savage: The Restless Life of...
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Episode 21 — Frederick Russell Burnham — The Making of a Scout
Frederic Russell Burnham was a romantic who aspired from his youth to be a frontier scout. On his own on the Arizona frontier as a teenager, he apprenticed to old-timers and trained himself in the skills he prized — and tested himself in feud and on patrol in the late days of the Apache wars....
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Johannes Lodewikus Lee — African Hunter
Johannes Lodewikus Lee was one of the more wayward and eccentric hunters who penetrated the interior of southern Africa in the middle of the 19th Century, on the hunt for elephant ivory. He loved many women — though not well — and sired a great brood of children while building a weird stone…
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Episode 19 — Frederick Courteney Selous, Part II — Soldier
Frederick Courteney Selous dreamed of Africa as a youth, and ultimately became a frontier hunter in the 1870s and 1880s, then a pioneer of what would become Rhodesia. His books on hunting adventures in southern Africa remain classics of the genre and they would make him famous and a friend to...
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Episode 18 — Frederick Courteney Selous, Hunter
Frederick Courteney Selous dreamed of Africa as a youth, and ultimately became a frontier hunter in the 1870s and 1880s, then a pioneer of what would become Rhodesia. His books on hunting adventures in southern Africa remain classics of the genre and they would make him famous and a friend to...
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ABOUT THIS SHOW
History, legends and lore of the Adventurers, Rangers and Scouts who fought the battles of Empire...
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frontierpartisans
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How many episodes does The Frontier Partisans Podcast have?
The Frontier Partisans Podcast currently has 62 episodes available on PodParley. New episodes are automatically indexed when they're published to the podcast feed.
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History, legends and lore of the Adventurers, Rangers and Scouts who fought the battles of Empire...
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The Frontier Partisans Podcast has 62 episodes. Check the episode list to see recent publication dates and frequency.
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