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History Unplugged PodcastA show about American history, world history, World Wars 1 & 2, the Civil War, and much more. Author: History Unplugged
For history lovers who listen to podcasts, History Unplugged is the most comprehensive show of its kind. It's the only show that dedicates episodes to both interviewing experts and answering questions from its audience. First, it features a call-in show where you can ask our resident historian (Scott Rank, PhD) absolutely anything (What was it like to be a Turkish sultan with four wives and twelve concubines? If you were sent back in time, how would you kill Hitler?). Second, it features long-form interviews with best-selling authors who have written about everything. Topics include gruff World War II generals who flew with airmen on bombing raids, a war horse who gained the rank of sergeant, and presidents who gave their best speeches while drunk. Language: en-us Genres: History, Society & Culture Contact email: Get it Feed URL: Get it iTunes ID: Get it |
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A Utah Indian Chief Controlled the 1800s Mountain West Through Slave Trading, Building Pioneer Trails, Horse Stealing, and Becoming Mormon
Thursday, 20 November, 2025
The American Indian leader Wakara was among the most influential and feared men in the nineteenth-century American West. He and his pan-tribal cavalry of horse thieves and slave traders dominated the Old Spanish Trail, the region’s most important overland route. They widened the trail and expanded its watering holes, reshaping the environmental and geographical boundaries of the region. They also exacted tribute from travelers passing along the trail and assisted the trail’s explorers with their mapmaking projects—projects that shaped the political and cultural boundaries of the West. What’s more, as the West’s greatest horse thief and horse trader as well as the region’s most prolific trader in enslaved Indians, Wakara supplied Spanish, Mexican, and Anglo-American settlers from Santa Fe to San Bernardino with the labor and horsepower that fueled empire and settler colonial expansion as well as fueled great changes to the West’s environmental landscape.Today’s guest is Max Mueller, author of of Wakara’s America: The Life and Legacy of a Native Founder of the American West. We look at his complex and sometimes paradoxical story, revealing a man who both helped build the settler American West and defended Native sovereignty. Wakara was baptized a Mormon and allied with Mormon settlers against other Indians to seize large parts of modern-day Utah. Yet a pan-tribal uprising against the Mormons that now bears Wakara’s name stalled and even temporarily reversed colonial expansion. Through diplomacy and through violence, Wakara oversaw the establishment of settlements, built new trade routes, and helped create the boundaries that still define the region. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
