Uploaded October 2022 | Updated September 2026, 1 week ago
Through the 19th Century, the US-Mexico border moved repeatedly, and the shifting borderlands were a space of cultural and economic transition that often gave rise to racialized gendered violence.
In this episode I speak with Dr. Bernadine Hernández, Associate Professor of American Literary Studies at the University of New Mexico, an activist with fronteristxs, and author of Border Bodies: Racialized Sexuality, Sexual Capital, and Violence in the Nineteenth-Century Borderlands.
Our theme song is Frogs Legs Rag, composed by James Scott and performed by Kevin MacLeod, licensed under Creative Commons. The episode image is: “Mexican church at the smelter, El Paso, Texas, United States, ca. 1907,” Detroit Publishing Co. No known restrictions on publication, Accessed via the Library of Congress.
Additional Sources:
“A moving border, and the history of a difficult boundary,” by Ron Dungan, USA Today, The Wall, 2018.
“The Violent History of the U.S.-Mexico Border,” by Becky Little, History.com, March 14, 2019.
“Mexico's Independence Day marks the beginning of a decade-long revolution,” by Heather Brady, National Geographic, September 14, 2018.
“The Republic of Texas - The Texas Revolution” The Treaties of Velasco,” Texas State Libraries and Archives Commission.
“Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo (1848),” National Archives.
“Refusing to Forget: The History of Racial Violence on the Mexico-Texas Border.”
“Rodriguez, Josefa [Chipita] (unknown–1863),” by Marylyn Underwood, Texas State Historical Association.
“Woman by the River: Chipita’s ghost lingers on in San Patricio on 156th anniversary of hanging,” by Paul Gonzales, News of San Patricio, November 15, 2019.
Through the 19th Century, the US-Mexico border moved repeatedly, and the shifting borderlands were a space of cultural and economic transition that often gave rise to racialized gendered violence.
In this episode I speak with Dr. Bernadine Hernández, Associate Professor of American Literary Studies at the University of New Mexico, an activist with fronteristxs, and author of Border Bodies: Racialized Sexuality, Sexual Capital, and Violence in the Nineteenth-Century Borderlands.
Our theme song is Frogs Legs Rag, composed by James Scott and performed by Kevin MacLeod, licensed under Creative Commons. The episode image is: “Mexican church at the smelter, El Paso, Texas, United States, ca. 1907,” Detroit Publishing Co. No known restrictions on publication, Accessed via the Library of Congress.
Additional Sources:
“A moving border, and the history of a difficult boundary,” by Ron Dungan, USA Today, The Wall, 2018.
“The Violent History of the U.S.-Mexico Border,” by Becky Little, History.com, March 14, 2019.
“Mexico's Independence Day marks the beginning of a decade-long revolution,” by Heather Brady, National Geographic, September 14, 2018.
“The Republic of Texas - The Texas Revolution” The Treaties of Velasco,” Texas State Libraries and Archives Commission.
“Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo (1848),” National Archives.
“Refusing to Forget: The History of Racial Violence on the Mexico-Texas Border.”
“Rodriguez, Josefa [Chipita] (unknown–1863),” by Marylyn Underwood, Texas State Historical Association.
“Woman by the River: Chipita’s ghost lingers on in San Patricio on 156th anniversary of hanging,” by Paul Gonzales, News of San Patricio, November 15, 2019.

![The Long History of the Chicago Portage | Unsung History
When Europeans arrived in the Great Lakes region, they learned from the Indigenous people living there of a route from Canada to the Gulf of Mexico, made possible by a portage connecting the Chicago River and the Des Plaines River. That portage, sometimes called Mud Lake, provided both opportunity and challenge to European powers who struggled to use European naval technology in a region better suited to Indigenous birchbark canoes. In the early 19th century, however, the Americans remade the region with major infrastructure projects, finally controlling the portage not with military power but with engineering, and setting the stage for Chicago’s rapid growth as a major metropolis.
Joining me in this episode is Dr. John William Nelson, Assistant Professor of History at Texas Tech University and author of Muddy Ground: Native Peoples, Chicagos Portage, and the Transformation of a Continent.
Our theme song is Frogs Legs Rag, composed by James Scott and performed by Kevin MacLeod, licensed under Creative Commons. The mid-episode music is Water Droplets on the River, composed and performed by Kevin MacLeod, licensed under Creative Commons.
The episode image is a photograph of a statue that depicts members of the Kaskaskia, a tribe of the Illinois Confederation, leading French explorers Louis Jolliet and Father Jacques Marquette, to the western end of the Chicago Portage in the summer of 1673. The statue was designed by Chicago area artist Ferdinand Rebechini and erected on April 25-26, 1990. The photograph is under the creative commons license CC BY-SA 2.0 and is available via Wikimedia Commons.
Additional sources:
“Chicago Portage National Historic Site,” National Park Service.
“STORY 1: Chicago Portage National Historic Site/Sitio Histórico Nacional de Chicago Portage,” Friends of the Chicago River.
“Portage,” Encyclopedia of Chicago.
“The Chicago Portage,” Carnegie Mellon University Libraries Digital Collection.
“Marquette and Jolliet 1673 Expedition,” by Roberta Estes, Native Heritage Project, December 30, 2012.
“Louis Jolliet & Jacques Marquette [video],” PBS World Explorers.
“Cadillac, Antoine De La Mothe,” Encyclopedia of Detroit.
“Chicago’s Mythical French Fort,” by Winstanley Briggs, Encyclopedia of Chicago.
“Seven Years’ War,” History.com, Originally posted on November 12, 2009 and updated on June 13, 2023.
“Treaty of Paris (1783),” U.S. National Archives.
“The Northwest and the Ordinances, 1783-1858,” Library of Congress.
“The Battle Of The Wabash: The Forgotten Disaster Of The Indian Wars,” by Patrick Feng, The Army Historical Foundation.
“The Battle Of Fallen Timbers, 20 August 1794,” by Matthew Seelinger, The Army Historical Foundation.
“History of Fort Dearborn,” Chicagology.
“How Chicago Transformed From a Midwestern Outpost Town to a Towering City,” by Joshua Salzmann, Smithsonian Magazine, October 12, 2018.
“Chicago: 150 Years of Flooding and Excrement,” by Whet Moser, Chicago Magazine, April 18, 2013.
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Episode link: https://play.headliner.app/episode/17825955?utm_source=youtube
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![The Combahee River Raid of 1863 | Unsung History
Starting in November 1861, the Union Army held the city of Beaufort, South Carolina, using the Sea Islands as a southern base of operations in the Civil War. Harriet Tubman joined the Army there, debriefing freedom seekers who fled enslavement in nearby regions and ran to seek the Union Army’s protection in Beaufort. With the intelligence Tubman gathered, she and Colonel James Montgomery led 150 Black soldiers on a daring raid along the Combahee RIver in June 1863, destroying seven rice plantations in the heart of the Confederate breadbasket, causing $6 million worth of damages and liberating 756 people from enslavement on the rice fields.
Joining me in this episode is Dr. Edda Fields-Black (https://eddafieldsblack.com/), Associate Professor of HIstory at Carnegie Mellon University and author of COMBEE: Harriet Tubman, the Combahee River Raid, and Black Freedom during the Civil War (https://bookshop.org/a/34046/9780197552797).
Our theme song is Frogs Legs Rag (https://incompetech.com/music/royalty-free/index.html), composed by James Scott and performed by Kevin MacLeod, licensed under Creative Commons. The mid-episode music is Dangerous, by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) (https://incompetech.com/music/royalty-free/music.html), Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). The episode image is Mcpherson & Oliver, photographer. “2nd South Carolina Infantry Regiment raid on rice plantation, Combahee, South Carolina (https://www.loc.gov/item/2014645368/),” by Mcpherson and Oliver, published in Harper’s Weekly, July 4, 1863; the image is in the public domain and is available via the Library of Congress.
Additional Sources:
“ Port Royal, Battle of (https://www.scencyclopedia.org/sce/entries/port-royal-battle-of/) ,” by Stephen R. Wise, Encyclopedia of South Carolina, Originally published June 20, 2016, and updated August 22, 2022. “ Nov. 7, 1861: The Port Royal Experiment Initiated (https://www.zinnedproject.org/news/tdih/port-royal-experiment-initiated/) ,” Zinn Education Project. “ The Port Royal Experiment (https://ldhi.library.cofc.edu/exhibits/show/hidden-voices/continuities-and-changes/enslaved-women-in-the-civilwar/port-royal-experiment) ,” The Lowcountry Digital History Initiative (LDHI). “ Port Royal Experiment: Reconstruction Era in Beaufort, South Carolina with Park Ranger Chris Barr [video] (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8WHnUppkpmU) ,” National Center for Preservation Technology and Training (NCPTT), August 23, 2022. “ Life on the Sea Islands (Part I) (https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1864/05/life-on-the-sea-islands/308758/) ,” by Charlotte Forten Grimké, The Atlantic, May 1864. “ Life on the Sea Islands (Part II) (https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1864/06/life-on-the-sea-islands-continued/308759/) ,” by Charlotte Forten Grimké, The Atlantic, June 1864. “ Harriet Tubman’s Great Raid (https://archive.nytimes.com/opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/06/07/harriet-tubmans-great-raid/) ,” by Paul Donnelly, The New York Times, June 7, 2013. “ After the Underground Railroad, Harriet Tubman Led a Brazen Civil War Raid (https://www.history.com/news/harriet-tubman-combahee-ferry-raid-civil-war) ,” by Alexis Clark, History.com, Originally published November 1, 2019, and updated August 29, 2023.
Episode link: https://play.headliner.app/episode/19441721?utm_source=youtube
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