Preview

Western Frontier Research Paper

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
1050 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Western Frontier Research Paper
The Western Frontier

The western frontier is full of many experiences that changed the frontier. Each significant event has an important role on the shaping of society and way it influenced a new nation. Each author brought a new perspective and thought process to the western experience which either contradicted Turner or supported his theories. The frontier ideas that interested me include topics such as trading frontier, farming frontier, nationality and government, and the neglecting of women. Frontiers shaped the west and how settlers approached it. Each different frontier had a different affect on people and the ways they lived life. The trading frontier created and established a good and bad relationship with the natives. The Norsemen, Vespuccius, Verraconi, Hudson, and John Smith all trafficked furs and other goods to Native Americans. They trafficked goods all the way from Maine to Georgia, which then led to the opening of river courses to trade farther in the continent. After
…show more content…
The frontier promoted the formation of nationality. The frontiersmen included the whites, Scotch-Irish, Palatine Germans, and the Dutch. They had freed indented servants which was a small case of slavery to a certain extent. As the nationalism increase and the western movement moved on the dependence on England was on the decline "Turner p31". The main problem was the south was depended on England for supplies because they didn't have diversified supplies. The national government soon followed the movement into the west and played a bug role in the frontier activities. The Whig party was nationalized of the ideas and needs of the frontiers. Turner stated, "That the government must be both capitalist and a protégé," "Worster, p.99". Economic and social characteristics of the western frontier worked against sectionalism but the frontier also promoted democracy by being a product of

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    The American West was viewed as a land of opportunity and success for many people of different racial and financial backgrounds during the time between 1865 to 1890. However, the extent of success from the opportunity varied on multiple factors. For the homesteader, opportunity was based upon good weather conditions and hard work but mostly only large scale corporations succeeded. Mining provided little for the average miner; large mining industries profited instead.. At some point West was the land of opportunity and at the same time it was not a land of opportunity for Native American Indians and Minorities.…

    • 366 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    Between the years 1811 to 1840, Americans had migrated into the trans-Mississippi West in order to obtain defined boundaries with Canada and Mexico; moreover, they went westward to acquire the western edge of the continent. Commercial goals fueled early interest as traders firs sought beaver skins in Oregon territory as early as 1811 and then bison robes prepared by the Plains tribes in the area around the upper Missouri River and its tributaries. Many of the men in the fur business married Indian women, thereby making valuable connections with Indian tribes involved in trapping. In the Southwest, the collapse of the Spanish Empire gave American traders an opportunity they had long sought. Their economic activity prepared the way for military conquest. To the south, land for cotton rather than trade or missionary fervor attracted settlers and squatters in the 1820s at the very time that the Tejano population of 2,000 was adjusting to Mexican independence. On the Pacific, a few New England traders carrying sea otter skins to China anchored in the harbors of Spanish California in the early nineteenth century. By the 1830s, as the near extermination of the animals ruined this trade, a commerce based on California cowhides and tallow developed. New England ships brought clothes, boots, hardware, and furniture manufactured in the East to exchange for hides collected from local ranchers. Among the earliest easterners to settle in the trans-Mississippi West were tribes from the South and the Old Northwest whom the American government forcibly relocated in the present-day Oklahoma and Kansas.…

    • 1740 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    In 1845 the pioneers on the western frontier prepared to open a wagon rout to the Pacific coast. They found out that they were on of the chosen few to go on the expedition. George Donner and his brother then decided, after careful consideration, to accept the invitation to join the westward migration. George deeded some of his land to each of his grown children, while keeping 110 acres for his younger children in case they wanted to return to their home state. On May 11th they arrived at Missouri. Then the Colonel Russell's California Company promised to wait for Boon and his family on the Kansas…

    • 113 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Mexico inspired Western cattle ranching. The first cattle in the Americas came from Spain, there were so many cattle that ranching became a very good business for Californios, Tejanos and the Americans who learned from the Mexicans. The cattle from Spain were very thin and their horns were long and broad. Instead of the dairy products produced by Eastern farms, the Western ranches produced things like meat and hides. Rancheros overlooked their herds and fields while vaqueros were hired to take care of the cattle. One of the vaqueros most important jobs was branding, which was when they used a hot iron to burn a mark into the cow’s skin. Branding was necessary to tell people’s cows apart because different owners let their cows out in the same…

    • 154 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    According to Turner, the hardships required to perpetuate social evolution along the frontier had shaped the political process in America at the time. His theory, being from a Westerner’s perspective, did not receive much acknowledgment at the time. However, many thinkers of this era were of a post Darwinism understanding. Political and socioeconomic evolutions are due in part to the settler mindset that is deeply instilled into the western frontier of America. To Turner, America imposes a Composite nationality. The people who inhabited the frontier early on were primarily servants. This promoted a population of people from various cultures around the world. Not only did this promote individualism, but it also allowed communities to redefine themselves and become something new. Turner believes that it is from here, and not European influence, that we found our economic and political voice as a nation.…

    • 487 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Pueblo Indians are a mixture of several Native American tribes. They are descended from the Anasazi people. The best known of the mixture are Acoma, Taos, Hopi, and Zuni tribes. The Pueblo Indians settle in areas of the Southwest. In areas of the Mesa Verde Region, which is located the Four Corners. It is said that the Pueblo Indians acquired their name from the Spanish explorers that came across the tribe and used the Spanish term “pueblo” meaning “town” to describe their adobe homes and town.…

    • 246 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    2) What was Frederick Jackson Turner’s frontier thesis? Why did his ideas affect Americans so much, and how did they influence American culture and policy? In formulating your response, be sure to include at least three of the following topics: democracy, race, immigration, industrialization, and imperialism.…

    • 3703 Words
    • 18 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    In view of the Choctaw tribe, their lots of things today's generation does not know that went about on/inside their reservation. There are things like their geographic location, clothing, historical impact, housing and reputation that no one could have never thought about that went on at reservations in America.…

    • 404 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The article I chose to critique was Women's Role in the American West by T. A. Larson. One main argument presented was that women’s roles in the West were often ignored in most writings during the late 1800’s. Larson stated that women of the West were treated as if they were of small significance, judging by the little attention they received from historians. Such examples of this were shown throughout the article from sources such as John A. Hawgood's America's Western Frontier, LeRoy R. Hafen and Carl Coke Rister’s edition of Western America (2nd ed., 1950), and Jackson Turner’s famous essay “The Significance of the Frontier in American History.” These historians devoted very little attention to women in their writings, usually only one…

    • 376 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Turner Thesis is a significant article that was presented in 1893 to inform why the American frontier is important to the development of American history. Frederick Jackson Turner, point of view on America, is that the U.S. is exceptional from other countries due to the fact of westward expansion. For example, he believes the frontier gave new opportunities for the U.S. to improved and become more superior, as a result of the manifest destiny and American settlers restarting from the beginning. In addition, he implies that the free land, cause Americans to evolve and adapt to the new environment, and therefore a better democracy, individualism, civilized, and society was formed. He states that expanding to the west, American settlers became…

    • 129 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Turner’s thesis discussed the significance of the frontier and how it embodied what America was all about at the time; he argued that the frontier brought out raw survival instincts and embellished nationalism, independence, and democracy. Turner’s new viewpoint was revolutionary for its time because most historians thought with an Atlantic Coast bias, believing that the East, especially New England, was the true heart of American culture and that that culture traced back to English political institutions. Turner, a rural Wisconsin native, had been unaffected by this general bias and strongly believed that the narrow perspective of 19th century Eastern-American historians neglected the broader contours of social, cultural, and economic history that had shaped American…

    • 2324 Words
    • 10 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    Colorado was the 38th state of the U.S. when it joined on August 1, 1876. It is America’s eight largest state. It was first explored by the Spanish in the 1500s and was given to the United States under the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo that ended the Mexican-American in 1848. Because gold was discovered in Colorado, it attracted new settlers that caused conflicts with the Indians. This caused the Plains Indian Wars. Colorado mostly votes for Republicans but sometimes it shifts to Democrats. From 1976 to 1988, all the votes are Republican but it shifted in 1992 when they voted for a democrat. Then again, from 1996 to 2004, they went back to the Republican Party. In the 2008 election, the democrats won by a margin of 53.7% compared to the republican…

    • 612 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    “ The public perception of the “closing of the west”, along with the philosophy of social Darwinism, contributed to a desire for continued expansion of American culture”,…

    • 1017 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    First off the land was cheaper in the west than in the east, and it was more arable since it was land that had not been actually evolved. The eastern land had already taken a toll, with the continues growth of tobacco and the new fresh land would allow farmers to continue their tobacco planting and trading. In addition the transportation system that was creating a new era benefited the farmers by allowing their trade to reach destinations at a much faster rate. Nevertheless as when the New World was found gold had to be hidden, the exact event happened with the west, as seen with the California Gold Rush with John Marshall who had found gold creating the chase of gold. The west was a vast area with brand new benefits for the people that were brave and interested in starting over with the chance of gaining economic benefits, which both the south and north…

    • 836 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    women's frontier thesis

    • 1424 Words
    • 6 Pages

    England, a small and familiar place for many, was a community with very strict rules and beliefs. The Church of England was the dominant power over the country, and not everyone was happy with this dictatorship. Once the land in America was founded, Puritans and other men searching for freedom gathered and sailed across the sea to the new land. America became a “melting pot” full of various traditions, cultures, and beliefs from England as well as new “American” ideas. This process took time and involved adapting and hard work to civilize the land. In 1893, Frederick Jackson Turner discussed and wrote about the frontier and how it shaped American characteristics. He talked about the steps the Europeans had to take to transform the environment into one with reasonable laws and into one with more of a community rather than mere wilderness. “As successive terminal moraines result from successive glaciations, so each frontier leaves its traces behind it, and when it becomes a settled area the region still partakes of the frontier characteristics. (Turner 153)”1This quote talks about the frontier having characteristics from the old country, England, as well as new developed ones from America. Turner’s argument is based off the European men arriving in American and having to adapt to the Indian lifestyle which consisted of hunting and of living off the land. Later the Europeans introduced their own more civilized ideas to further the society and build up the area as a whole. Turner only talked about the male figures shaping America and completely disregarded women and their roles in the community. Although Turner’s “frontier thesis” involving males shaping America became a very prominent idea, Elizabeth Ashbridge and Mary Rowlandson, two women, wrote about their completely different experiences. Elizabeth Ashbridge and Mary Rowlandson both represent victims of slavery and viewed the frontier as a place of fear, confusion,…

    • 1424 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Powerful Essays