Turner's Frontier Thesis
Prior to the Revolutionary War of 1776, the thirteen colonies of the eastern seaboard were uniformly recognized as an appendage of England. They were considered by many to be the Western segment of Great Britain. However, the colonial victory of the Revolutionary War depraved the Britons of their Western appendage. The United States had in fact begun its own establishment, developing the manifest destiny to grow Westward. The acquiring of the Louisiana Purchase from Napoleonic France overnight doubled the size of the infant nation and created a large sense of nostalgia. With the expeditions of Lewis and Clark came further expansion into the backcountry of the West. Eventually reaching the Pacific Ocean, the United States had accomplished its goal of reaching "from sea to shining sea". Yet they had attained far more than their original goal. Development of the Western United States had returned man to his Darwinian beginnings, making evolution inevitable. With each evolutionary stage came the increase of true American character and the decrease of European influence. Frederick Jackson Turner, in his remarkable "The Significance of the Frontier in American History", embraces that point and further analyzes it. Turner argu
He explains that goods were purchased from eastern companies and from eastern merchants. With the absence of eastern institutions, frontiersmen were forced to rely on their own intuition and vigor. The growth of the frontier had triggered much of American history. Frontiersmen were heartland Americans, people who overturned eastern deference to authority and depended on their own perceptiveness and energy to develop the West. However, Turner explains that the frontier has embraced the diversity, creating what he deemed a "composite nationality", or a large and diverse family. Even after the American Revolution, the United States still received much of its final goods from European nations. The West mimicked the East in all parts of society. The federal government, by providing cheap or free lands, had constructed a "safety valve" which protected America from uprisings of the poverty-stricken or discontented. Most importantly, Turner felt that the dominant individualism frontiersmen displayed led to the development of individualist democracy. Despite the explications and claims made by Turner, the West was not as influential on American politics and character as stated in "The Significance of the Frontier in American History". The frontier had many lasting effects on American society. They brought this qualm with them to Washington, helping to lead to the abolition of slavery after the Civil War. The majority of machinery and supplies on the frontier was of eastern descent. Most importantly, Turner suggests that the frontier disregarded eastern homage to authority and promoted a distinctly American democracy. The United States remained the Western appendage of Europe, reinforcing European practices and beliefs in the Western Hemisphere.
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Acceptance Essays
