The Great River: The Making & Unmaking of the Mississippi

For thousands of years Native peoples made their homes in the Mississippi watershed, that spans nearly half of what is now the United States. They respected the “great river” and lived peaceably alongside it. But when European settlers arrived they upended Native lives and their relationship to the river. As America grew as a nation, it saw the river as a foe to conquer and control. In the past three centuries settler descendants have transformed this mighty river into a troubled tangle of contradictions.

On this episode of Locus Focus we talk with Boyce Upholt, author of The Great River: the Making and Unmaking of the Mississippi, that uncovers the Mississippi River that persists beneath an infrastructure of concrete and steel.