The Significance of the Frontier

Running Head: The Significance of the Frontier

The Significance of the Frontier

Name:

University:

Course:

Tutor:

Date:

Introduction

The frontier thesis proposed by Frederick Jackson Turner explains the shaping of the political history of the United States. Up to the present-day America, history has been to a great extent the history of the colonization of the country, the Great West. American development is explained by the existence of free land, its ongoing recession, and the progress of American settlement westwards (Jacobs, 1965). The Americans institutions have remained peculiar. The peculiarity of these institutions is based on the argument that they have been forced to adapt themselves to the transformations of the increasing people. This is explained as the "changes involved in crossing a continent, in winning a wilderness, and in developing at each area of this progress out of the primitive economic and political conditions of the frontier into the complexity of city life" (Faragher, 1994:17). There have been various frontiers whose understanding enhances the understanding of the history of America. This essay explains why America never developed a strong socialist political movement because of the frontier's influence on the politics of the country and what did it produce instead (Faragher, 1994).

There were various successive frontiers with definite boundaries which have defined the history of the country. They include: "the 'fall line;' the Allegheny Mountains; the Mississippi; the Missouri where its direction approximates north and south; the line of the arid lands, approximately the ninety-ninth meridian; and the Rocky Mountains. The fall line marked the frontier of the seventeenth century; the Alleghenies that of the eighteenth; the Mississippi that of the first quarter of the nineteenth; the Missouri that of the middle of this century (omitting the California movement); and the belt of the Rocky Mountains and the arid tract, the present frontier" (Faragher, 1994: 17). The end of one frontier marked the beginning of the next one explaining why they are termed as being successive. The political, social and economic system of the United States grew by adapting its laws to the standards of the frontiers (Jacobs, 1965).

All the American people show development. This is unique to America because in so many other nations, development is only in some areas, and incase a nation has extended, it has encountered other growing individuals that it has conquered. However, in the case of America, there is a unique phenomenon. Restricting the attention to the Atlantic Coast, there is the unique phenomenon of the development of institutions in a restricted area. However, there is in addition to this "a recurrence of the process of evolution in each western area reached in the process of expansion" (Hazard, 1927: 92). This serves to prove that the United States development has revealed not only development along a line but going back to primitive situations on a recurrently advancing frontier line. The country's social development has been repeatedly starting over and over on the frontier. This characteristic is what furnishes the forces that dominate the character of the United States. The actual perspective in the history of America is not the Atlantic coast. The actual point of view is the Great West (Faragher, 1994).

The frontier lies at the "hither edge of free land" (Turner, 1947:6). Even though the United States has been influenced by the entry of Europeans into the region, it modified and expanded the contact and reacted appropriately to Europe. One of the studies on this line is that of European germs growing under the American conditions. From this perspective, the intruder had to accept the conditions that he encountered in the country in order to flourish or deny them and perish. The end product of the efforts of the intruder is not a new Europe, but a new end product which is American (Turner, 1947). The Atlantic Coast was the new frontier which was the frontier of Europe in all manner of the term. However, as it moved forward it developed into American. The development of the frontier meant a continuous movement t away from the European influence; a steady movement towards the independence on American terms. Men developed under these conditions, and as a result there were political, social and economic conditions that emerged, which were unique to America. The west as a conscious section evolved from the development. Different advances of the free land started to develop that were not similar to those in any other nation, not even any in Europe (Hazard, 1927).

It looks as though the ability of Americans to extend its territories to the western wilderness so as to enlarge its control was a real result of an expansive power intrinsic in the Americans. This power has continually agitated all classes of society. It has constantly thrown a large part of the entire population on the tremendous confines of the state, so as to get space for its expansion. A new territory or state is formed after this principle has manifested itself again and produces more emigration (Turner, 1947).

The frontier influenced the development of a composite nationality for the Americans. Even though the coast was predominantly English, the following tides of immigration entered across to the free lands. This is believed to be the case in the history of the country from the colonial times. With the people who flowed in here, were also the freed slaves, or redemptioners (Milner II, 1996). At the end of their time of their service, they also moved into the free lands. According to Governor Spotswood of Virginia in 1717, "The inhabitants of our frontiers are composed generally of such as have been transported hither as servants, and, being out of their time, settle themselves where land is to be taken up and that will produce the necessaries of life with little labor" (Skidmore, 2011:178). Most of these freed servants were not English as those who immigrated into the region. The immigrants of the free lands were Americanized. This means that they were absorbed into the ways of the American people. They were liberated and combined into mixed race. The mixed race did not have English as either a nationality or characteristic. This process has taken placed throughout the history of America, from the early days, to-date. It would have been expected with the affairs during the time that the country would be