ABSTRACT
This chapter presents the history and power of borders in late North American and United States history when borders helped facilitate the conditions for the formations, migrations, and transformations of sexuality over time. In the history of American sexuality, borders have represented more than mere geopolitical markers. Borders have shaped biopolitical relations, identified one’s race and national origin, and in doing so, demarcated bodies across continents as enslaved, undocumented, foreign, or citizen. The chapter examines borders before the proliferation of North America’s Western nation-states, exploring the ways in which borders shaped unions, tribes, and religiosity. One of the earliest manifestations of the interconnectedness between borders and sexuality occurred before Western colonialism penetrated North America’s shores. Hundreds of indigenous nations and populaces throughout the continent established tribal borders based on climate, the domestication of animals, and the hierarchy of family. European religion—specifically Christianity’s conquest of indigenous borders—deeply affected conceptions of sexuality and notions of gender on the continent.
