Dr. Samuel A. Forman
Ill-Fated Frontier: Peril and Possibilities in the Early American West
“Ill-Fated Frontier” is at once a pioneer adventure and a compelling narrative of the frictions that emerged among entrepreneurial pioneers and their sixty enslaved African Americans, Natives fighting to preserve their lands, and Spanish colonials with their own agenda. Here is a turbulent and visceral portrait of the wild American frontier in the Revolutionary era that begins with an optimistic plan and ends with the body of one of the expedition’s leaders returning East pickled in a barrel of rum. North becomes South by choice of some, compulsion of others, over fierce Native resistance, and with the encouragement of Spanish colonials.
[Recorded August 13, 2022.]
Dr. Samuel A. Forman, MD, MBA, MPH, (illfatedfrontier.com, DrJosephWarren.com, @DrSamForman) is a historian and Harvard University faculty member. He is educated in the history of the American Revolution as well as the practice of medicine. Throughout his successful careers as a physician, military officer, and businessman, he has published and lectured on historical topics that inform current issues. Sam is the author of the award-winning biography Dr. Joseph Warren: The Boston Tea Party, Bunker Hill, and the Birth of American Liberty (Pelican, 2012). His latest book is Ill-Fated Frontier: Peril and Possibilities in the Early American West (Lyons Press of Rowman and Littlefield, 2021).
Dr. Forman is a Founding Board Member of The Pursuit of History and is a regular presenter at History Camp Boston.