Fredrick Jackson Turner and Reginald Horsman present us with two very different views of American History. Turner views the American period of expansionism across the North American continent as if this were a natural phenomenon. In contrast, Horsman begs us to consider such a perception—very seriously. Where Turner sees something like a sprit of freedom and independence driving the course of American history into the western frontier—and (coincidentally) over the peoples already living there—Horsman reveals how such a view of the American people’s ‘nature’ is constructed, ultimately to justify such expansion. Where Turner limits their view of American history to simply what the colonists did to take over the continent, viewing their history in isolation, Horsman tries to go beyond this, showing some of the history—and racially-based ideology—which in turn influences Turner’s view of history. Let us consider these differences further, beginning with how Turner presents the expansion of the American peoples across the North American continent. We should take careful notice of how Turner describes the role of native tribes in American history. The reason for this is that it proves to be very insightful into the kind of historical narrative that Turner presents to describe the ‘real reasons’ for why American’s expanded into the Western frontiers. In a sense, Turner presents a kind of social-historical blindness, if not white-European- privileging bias in their analysis. One gets the impression from Turner’s analysis that the native tribes (which we refer to today as Native Americans) indeed existed. Indeed, they played an important role in American history. And yet, in reading Turner’s view, one discovers that at the sa... ... middle of paper ... ...rt of retrospective awareness of history that Horsman could, which, perhaps, might have changed Turner’s views on the essential principles of American identity. No less, we can see how Turner exemplifies a sort of blindness to the historical, social construction of Anglo Saxon identity, and how this conception was designed. We can see how Turner assumes this identity was a given fact of life, emerging on its own out of nowhere on the North American landscape which further legitimized, in Turner’s view, the expansion of American’s into the western frontier. Works Cited Horsman, Reginald. Race and Manifest Destiny: The Origins of American Racial Anglo-Saxonism. Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 1981. Print. Turner, Frederick J. The Significance of the Frontier in American History. Ann Arbor: University Microfilms, 1966. Print.
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 knowledge of what came before the white settlers; “I came to believe that the dramatic, amusing, appalling, wondrous, despicable and heroic years of the mid-nineteenth century have to be seen to some degree in the context of the 120 centuries before them” .
In a lively account filled that is with personal accounts and the voices of people that were in the past left out of the historical armament, Ronald Takaki proffers us a new perspective of America’s envisioned past. Mr. Takaki confronts and disputes the Anglo-centric historical point of view. This dispute and confrontation is started in the within the seventeenth-century arrival of the colonists from England as witnessed by the Powhatan Indians of Virginia and the Wamapanoag Indians from the Massachusetts area. From there, Mr. Takaki turns our attention to several different cultures and how they had been affected by North America. The English colonists had brought the African people with force to the Atlantic coasts of America. The Irish women that sought to facilitate their need to work in factory settings and maids for our towns. The Chinese who migrated with ideas of a golden mountain and the Japanese who came and labored in the cane fields of Hawaii and on the farms of California. The Jewish people that fled from shtetls of Russia and created new urban communities here. The Latinos who crossed the border had come in search of the mythic and fabulous life El Norte.
Horsman, Reginald. Race and Manifest Destiny: The Origins of Racial Anglo-Saxonism. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1981.
Talking Back to Civilization , edited by Frederick E. Hoxie, is a compilation of excerpts from speeches, articles, and texts written by various American Indian authors and scholars from the 1890s to the 1920s. As a whole, the pieces provide a rough testimony of the American Indian during a period when conflict over land and resources, cultural stereotypes, and national policies caused tensions between Native American Indians and Euro-American reformers. This paper will attempt to sum up the plight of the American Indian during this period in American history.
Turner’s thesis was to a wide extent based on this belief. Turners tried to convince people that American uniqueness is as a result of the constant contact with an open frontier for about 300 years. Turner’s conclusion significantly builds up on the American exceptionalism or uniqueness. He summarized his thesis by saying the most relevant aspect of the frontier was promotion of individualistic democracy. The ubiquity of opportunity and significance of individual labor restrained monopoly of political power from developing and led to American Democratic
In Chapter 8 of Major Problems in American Immigration History, the topic of focus shifts from the United States proper to the expansion and creation of the so called American Empire of the late Nineteenth Century. Unlike other contemporary colonial powers, such as Britain and France, expansion beyond the coast to foreign lands was met with mixed responses. While some argued it to be a mere continuation of Manifest Destiny, others saw it as hypocritical of the democratic spirit which had come to the United States. Whatever their reasons, as United States foreign policy shifted in the direction of direct control and acquisition, it brought forth the issue of the native inhabitants of the lands which they owned and their place in American society. Despite its long history of creating states from acquired territory, the United States had no such plans for its colonies, effectively barring its native subjects from citizenship. Chapter 8’s discussion of Colonialism and Migration reveals that this new class of American, the native, was never to be the equal of its ruler, nor would they, in neither physical nor ideological terms, join in the union of states.
The opening paragraph summarizes American history in abstract terms: “It was happy in a new sense of freedom from control, happy in the opportunity of exploration and adventure; for this child’s spirit, in bodies of its ancestors, had for thousands of years been trained to memorable feats of discovery and conquest” (455). The diction Bierce uses conveys a sense of warmongering and that war and conquest is what brings about “memorable feats.” The ever expanding frontier, the cross-continental explorations, and the colonizing of the West, though, are all described by Bierce in terms of a mirthful child going to play in the woods unabated and “unobserved” (Ibid). Bierce undermines the notion that American conquests in the past were grand exploits of a privileged and godly people.
In the twenty-first century, schools all over the country teach that Native Americans were here before what are now considered “Americans.” These new Americans arrived by boats, bringing with them disease and manifest destiny, conquering the land that was once called home by thousands of tribes. Nevertheless, through extortionist deals, mass murder and small pox, the land was evetually vacated, leaving the new Americans to take their place and flourish. While schools teach the same basic story of the first thanksgiving and Squanto, what is not remembered is any semblance of the culture. Feather headdresses, bows and arrows, and war calls while playing a game of “Cowboys and Indians” are the images many Americans associate with of what once had dominance over the entirety of the North American continent for centuries (if not millenia). In his collection of short stories The Martian Chronicles, Ray Bradbury expressed unheard of sympathy towards Native American and Communists alike with a radical position that in which he used an fictitious species as an allegory for the struggles of millions. Even though he contradicts himself in the delivery of parts of his core message, Bradbury’s radical viewpoints and pessimistic views of the future serve as both an apology and a warning for the extermination of civilizations. Written and published in the 1950s, the book radically discredited American expansionist tendencies in post war America when such sympathies and opinions were not tolerated. As a warning for the future, Ray Bradbury possessed foresight as conquest of cultures plagues American foreign policy even today.
Segal, Charles M. and David C. Stineback, Foreword by Sacvan Barcovitch, Puritans, Indians and Manifest Destiny. Pub: by Putnam, 1977
Daniel Richter's Facing East from Indian Country: A Native History of Early America, turns many heads as Richter changes the traditional outlook of the Westward expansion all the way to the American Revolution by viewing certain events through the eyes of the Native Americans who were settled in this land years before the new colonizations started. It was not easy to try and make a complete work about the different perspectives that the Natives had, due to the fact that many sources are works from Europeans or they were filtered by them. Richter explains that Native people sketch out elaborative paintings in their house or on barks of living trees, many of these sources obviously have not lasted long enough for us to examine. This book, however gives great detail and fully analyzes the "aggressively expansionist Euro-American United States" (p. 8-7) that rose from what belonged to Indian Country. Richter challenges you to compose a new framework of the Indian and European encounters reforming the "master narrative" of early American colonization from the Native point of view.
...ard expansion, a person finds information about the essence of American culture. Though the English colonists came to America expecting to renew their lives through the Puritan faith, they instead found their faith and, indeed, their very society in danger from the heathen Indian presence in the surrounding wilderness. But while the Indians threatened the core of the colonials’ lives, the presence of the colonists and their westerly expansion threatened the lives and land that the Indians had held for many years. American history thus began in violence that has no single source, but rather is derived from the Puritans and Indians both fighting for and protecting their mutual interests and desires.
From the traditional masculine point of view, Manifest Destiny provided a strong argument for American imperialism. As “the great nation of futurity,” the United States for many imperialists had a fundamental duty to help heathen countries reach “the star-studded heavens,” and if expansionism also resulted in increased trade and market penetration, all the better. The bloody conflicts peppered throughout this path to heaven – the Spanish-American war, the Philippine-American war, the Boxer Rebellion – were but small hiccups to this fundamental goal, setbacks created by racial inferiors not yet aware of democracy’s beauty.
What 1890 Census words motivate Turner’s essay? Why is this a significant “brief official statement”?
The last 19th century is a time of great prosperity and innovation. It is a time of men and women who do everything within their power to enhance the United States and introduce true efficiency and revolutionary designs. PBS created an interactive map that displays the expansion of the United States from 1860 through 1890 and shows just how considerably the country grew. The progression of cities, railroad networks, and agricultural land are remarkable to occur is such a short period of time (map). During the 19th century, a number of people believe that Americans are destined for greatness and that it is their duty to expand their country. The Manifest Destiny is the perfect example of a literary work that exemplifies the notion that Americans
In “ A Description of New England ”, Smith starts by describing the pleasure and content that risking your life for getting your own piece of land brings to men. On the other hand, Bradford reminds us how harsh and difficult the trip to the New World was for the p...