Frederick Jackson Turner Significance Of The Frontier Thesis

Frontiersmen have existed throughout America’s history. According to Turner’s hypothesis, they push forwards for civilization and have shaped America. The stories All the Pretty Horses, The Gift of Cochise, and The Martian are all works of frontier literature. Each in their own way show frontiersmen during different times in America’s history with characters that interact with their respective frontiers in different ways. Through these three books one can see how the core interactions between frontiersmen and the frontiers call out the qualities of frontiersmen stated in Turner’s frontier hypothesis.

“The Contested Plains: Indians, Goldseekers, and the Rush to Colorado” Written by Elliott West. I chose to write about this book because of the large range of events and transitions that occurred throughout the American West that the author includes in the text. Elliot West highlights the struggles that many endured while trying to create better circumstances for not only themselves but also their families by moving to the west. He chronicles the adaptations that many white settlers arriving in the west faced in order to be able to make a living for themselves. But another reason why I found the book interesting was because of the way Elliot West provided perspective for each side of the struggle over the American West. He gives us the

What Turner wants to point out here is that the American West is the most important feature of American history, and of the development of its society. He refers several times to a process of “Americanization” and we will see that the definition he gives of it is a very peculiar one. He gives a definition of the frontier: “it lies at the hither edge of free land”, meaning that he considers the Indian territory to be free land. According to him the frontier is the “meeting point between savagery and civilization”, “the most rapid and effective Americanization”. The process of Americanization he refers to is in fact a double

Faragher, John Mack. Re-reading Frederick Jackson Turner: “The Significance of the Frontier in American History”

There are many ways in which we can view the history of the American West. One view is the popular story of Cowboys and Indians. It is a grand story filled with adventure, excitement and gold. Another perspective is one of the Native Plains Indians and the rich histories that spanned thousands of years before white discovery and settlement. Elliot West’s book, Contested Plains: Indians, Goldseekers and the Rush to Colorado, offers a view into both of these worlds. West shows how the histories of both nations intertwine, relate and clash all while dealing with complex geological and environmental challenges. West argues that an understanding of the settling of the Great Plains must come from a deeper understanding, a more thorough

The frontier was the most line of rapidness and effective Americanization. When the masters of the colonist found him, an European, it stripped him and provided him with a hunting shirt and moccasin. It settles him in a log cabin of the Cherokee and Iroquois. It provided a planting job of Indian corn and plowing with a sharp stick. Before going to planting he shouted the war cry and took the scalp in Indian fashion. Little by little his transformation outcomes were not old Europe and not the development of Germanic germs.

When the first colonists landed in the territories of the new world, they encountered a people and a culture that no European before them had ever seen. As the first of the settlers attempted to survive in a truly foreign part of the world, their written accounts would soon become popular with those curious of this “new” world, and those who already lived and survived in this seemingly inhospitable environment, Native American Indian. Through these personal accounts, the Native Indian soon became cemented in the American narrative, playing an important role in much of the literature of the era. As one would expect though, the representation of the Native Americans and their relationship with European Americans varies in the written works of the people of the time, with the defining difference in these works being the motives behind the writing. These differences and similarities can be seen in two similar works from two rather different authors, John Smith, and Mary Rowlandson.

One of the most famous arguments made in the world of environmental history was sparked by Frederick Jackson Turner in his essay, “The Significance of the Frontier in American History”. In his essay that came to be known as the Frontier/ Turner Thesis, he claimed that modern American culture and innovations had been developed by the growth of America into the western frontier. The migration of Americans to the western frontier originated through their desire for adventure as well as fertile and cheap land that was open for the taking. The frontier promised possibilities of expanding new markets in an unclaimed portion of the country. There are, however, several critics of the thesis, such as George Pierson, who disagree with Turner as to the

The history of the United States with regards to its native population is inaccurate and assumes that the history of this country began when the Pilgrims landed on Plymouth Rock (Richter, pp. 4-5). With regards to the native people’s

In 1893, at the 400th anniversary of the appearance of Columbus in the Americas celebrated in Chicago , Frederick Jackson Turner presented an academic paper entitled, “The Significance of the Frontier in American History” In this essay, Turner proposes that, “The existence of an area of free land, its continuous recession, and the advance of American settlement westward explain American development.” The group dynamic that Turner champions is the farmer. More directly it is white, male farmers. While the expansion of the west by white male farmers was a factor in the development of America, it is not the only explanation for this progression. Turner fails to incorporate all of the demographics present during this expansion which were essential to the evolution of America.

“The Indian presence precipitated the formation of an American identity” (Axtell 992). Ostracized by numerous citizens of the United States today, this quote epitomizes Axtell’s beliefs of the Indians contributing to our society. Unfortunately, Native Americans’ roles in history are often categorized as insignificant or trivial, when in actuality the Indians contributed greatly to Colonial America, in ways the ordinary person would have never deliberated. James Axtell discusses these ways, as well as what Colonial America may have looked like without the Indians’ presence. Throughout his article, his thesis stands clear by his persistence of alteration the Native Americans had on our nation. James Axtell’s bias delightfully enhances his thesis, he provides a copious amount of evidence establishing how Native Americans contributed critically to the Colonial culture, and he considers America as exceptional – largely due to the Native Americans.

The subject of this chapter summary will be the eighteenth chapter of Alan Taylor’s American Colonies. The chapter is called “The Great Plains” and discusses the history of that geographical region from 1680-1800. Taylor begins by explaining how warfare both sustained and weakened New Mexico. It maintained unity, because without an external enemy to focus on, the Pueblo people would rise up in revolt against Mexico. However, the constant warfare discouraged any new settlers from putting down roots there. Spain's holdings in North America were weakened by the foreign policy of the motherland, which focused on the colonial core of the territory, not the exterior regions. For Mexico, New Mexico was just a buffer zone between itself and other

Response to Turner's Essay on The Significance of the Frontier in American History Turner's "The Significance of the Frontier in American History" essay presents the primary model for comprehending American history. Turner developed his notions on the uncovering of the 1890 census that the frontier was coming to an end, that the nation had occupied its continental borders. As Turner discusses in his essay, an extensive era of American development approached an ending, but left enduring marks on American society. A major notion within his claims of the American frontier is, "the existence of an area of free land, its continuous recession, and the advance of American settlement westward, [that]

Over the years, the idea of the western frontier of American history has been unjustly and falsely romanticized by the movie, novel, and television industries. People now believe the west to have been populated by gun-slinging cowboys wearing ten gallon hats who rode off on capricious, idealistic adventures. Not only is this perception of the west far from the truth, but no mention of the atrocities of Indian massacre, avarice, and ill-advised, often deceptive, government programs is even present in the average citizen’s understanding of the frontier. This misunderstanding of the west is epitomized by the statement, “Frederick Jackson Turner’s frontier thesis was as real as the myth of the west. The development of the west was, in

The emergence of western history as an important field of scholarship started with Frederick Jackson Turner’s (1861-1932) famous essay “The Significance of the Frontier in American history.”[1] This thesis shaped both popular and scholarly views of the West for the next two generations. In his thesis, Turner argued that the West had to be taken seriously. He felt that up to his time there had not been enough research of what he in his essay call “the fundamental, dominating fact in the U.S. history”: the territorial expansion from the Atlantic to the Pacific coast. The frontier past was, according to Turner, the best way to describe the distinctive American history and character.