The Significance of the Frontier in American History
Frederick Jackson Turner with these exact words, "The existence of an area of free land, its continuous recession, and the advance of American settlement westward explain American development." laid the basis for modern historical study of the American West and presented a essay that remains to inspire historical views to this very day. Turner believed that American democracy, nationalism, individualism, and physical and social structures can be directly linked to the frontier and its expansion. Turner's essay reached heights in his belief that the promotion of individualistic democracy was the most important effect of the frontier. These individuals formed political, social, economic structures that were already established in the east but with more independence and individualism from there European counterparts. "But the most important effect of the frontier has been in the promotion of democracy here and in Europe. As has been indicated, the frontier is productive of individualism. Complex society is precipitated by the wilderness into a kind of primitive organization based on the family. The tendency is anti-social. It produces antipathy to control, and particularly to any direct control." Individuals, forced to rely on thei
Some of his arguments are very loosely substantiated, and he often relied on popular ideas of that time, and he even romanticized the expansion of the west to appeal to his audience during that particular era. Today is not so different from then in that land remains one commodity that can't be created by mass production or any other method, it can only be divided and sold. It finds him a European in dress, industries, tools, modes of travel, and thought. The Europeans were familiar to owning land and laid claim to it while they regarded the Indians to be nomads with no interest in claiming land ownership. Turner even stated in his essay that the Indians were a threat to the pioneer and were the main thing in the way of getting our "free land". The conflicts led to the Indian Wars. I believe he certainly downplayed that the slavery and harsh treatment of Native Americans to comfort the American national ideology of the expansion of the west. r own wits and strength, he believed, were simply too good to be associated with the European way of thinking anymore. "The most significant thing about the American frontier is, that it lies at the hither edge of free land. The pioneers could only imagine what was ahead of them. Free in the dictionary is defined as: Not imprisoned or enslaved; being at liberty, which I find funny and quite contrasting to what Turner suggests. Many conflicts developed between the Native American Indians and the Pioneers. " I believe that the very idea of a frontier of "free land. Particularism was strongest in colonies with no Indian frontier.
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