American Frontier Thesis

1296 Words3 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: The impact of cultural assimilation

By the end of the American Civil War in 1865, a new post-war reality had manifested for those living within the bounds of the United States and its attendant territories. Whites in both the North and South would be adjusting to Southern Reconstruction and rapid industrialization, African Americans dealing with their new but limited freedoms, and Indian Peoples grappling with broken promises made by both the Union and Confederacy during the war. As non-citizens, the Indian Peoples were generally alienated from American political and social life, with their status not entirely defined. This lack of representation led to a continual erosion of native land and an overall loss of power for native peoples. The tenuous relationship between Indian …show more content…

Turner saw the frontier as integral to the modern conception of America. In his book, Turner focuses sparingly on Indian Peoples. He considers the frontier itself as “Indian country”, and ties the successive settlement of new frontier land with the various “Indian wars” that took place.2 Turner sees the Indian as simply a part of the terrain, neither hated or loved but necessary to tame and control. He also makes note that the progress of civilization seen in America through trade, education, and industry, brought what he saw as social improvement to the Indian Peoples.3 Most importantly, throughout Turner’s work a heavy sense of inevitability is implied in the conquest of the frontier as a natural course of events, and with it, the conquest and relocation of the Indian Peoples. His words ring triumphant at the creation of this new American people shaped by the harsh western landscape, without a truly sober assessment of its impact against Indian People at a human level. This dismissive attitude, while not always malevolent, certainly can be said to have had a great influence on the views of settlers and lawmakers when dealing with the national Indian Question. The intended audience of Turner’s book appears to be the world at large, his writing not only providing a reason for the uniqueness of American Democracy but a celebration of the progress and triumph of European peoples in settling the rugged terrain of the Western United

Show More
Related

  • Talking Back To Civilization Summary

    1150 Words  | 3 Pages

    Talking Back to Civilization: Indian Voices from the Progressive Era edited by Frederick E. Hoxie is a book which begins with an introduction into the life of Charles Eastman and a brief overview of the history of Native Americans and their fight for justice and equal rights, it then continues by describing the different ways and avenues of speaking for Indian rights and what the activists did. This leads logically into the primary sources which “talk back” to the society which had overrun their own. The primary sources immerse the reader into another way of thinking and cause them to realize what our societal growth and even foundation has caused to those who were the true natives. The primary sources also expand on the main themes of the book which are outlines in the introduction. They are first and most importantly talking back to the “pale faces”, Indian education, religion, American Indian policy, the image of the Indians presented in America. The other chapters in the book further expanded on these ideas. These themes will be further discussed in the following chapters along with a review of this

    Read More

  • Analysis Of Thomas King's 'The Inconvenient Indian'

    918 Words  | 2 Pages

    In Thomas King’s novel, The Inconvenient Indian, the story of North America’s history is discussed from his original viewpoint and perspective. In his first chapter, “Forgetting Columbus,” he voices his opinion about how he feel towards the way white people have told America’s history and portraying it as an adventurous tale of triumph, strength and freedom. King hunts down the evidence needed to reveal more facts on the controversial relationship between the whites and natives and how it has affected the culture of Americans. Mainly untangling the confusion between the idea of Native Americans being savages and whites constantly reigning in glory. He exposes the truth about how Native Americans were treated and how their actual stories were

    Read More

  • Analysis Of Peace Came In The Form Of A Women

    1385 Words  | 3 Pages

    Native American’s place in United States history is not as simple as the story of innocent peace loving people forced off their lands by racist white Americans in a never-ending quest to quench their thirst for more land. Accordingly, attempts to simplify the indigenous experience to nothing more than victims of white aggression during the colonial period, and beyond, does an injustice to Native American history. As a result, historians hoping to shed light on the true history of native people during this period have brought new perceptive to the role Indians played in their own history. Consequently, the theme of power and whom controlled it over the course of Native American/European contact is being presented in new ways. Examining the evolving

    Read More

  • A Century Of Dishonor, By Helen Hunt Jackson

    678 Words  | 2 Pages

    To understand Jackson’s book and why it was written, however, one must first fully comprehend the context of the time period it was published in and understand what was being done to and about Native Americans in the 19th century. From the Native American point of view, the frontier, which settlers viewed as an economic opportunity, was nothin...

    Read More

  • Beyond 1492-Native Reactions to Invasion

    963 Words  | 2 Pages

    Axtell, James. “Native Reactions to the Invasion of North America.” Beyond 1492: Encounters in Colonial North America. New York: Oxford UP, 1992. 97-121. Print.

    Read More

  • The Frontier as a Place of Ethnic and Religion Conflict by Patricia Nelson Limerick

    1414 Words  | 3 Pages

    Patricia Nelson Limerick describes the frontier as being a place of where racial tension predominately exists. In her essay, “The Frontier as a Place of Ethnic and Religion Conflict,” Limerick says that the frontier wasn’t the place where everyone got to escape from their problems from previous locations before; instead she suggested that it was the place in which we all met. The frontier gave many the opportunities to find a better life from all over the world. But because this chance for a new life attracted millions of people from different countries across the seas, the United States experienced an influx of immigrants. Since the east was already preoccupied by settlers, the west was available to new settlement and that was where many people went. Once in the western frontier, it was no longer just about blacks and whites. Racial tension rose and many different races and ethnic groups soon experienced discrimination and violence based on their race, and beliefs instead of a since of freedom at the western frontier.

    Read More

  • Talking Back to Civilization

    1481 Words  | 3 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • "Custer Died For Your Sins" Analysis

    907 Words  | 2 Pages

    Author and Indian Activist, Vine Deloria makes compelling statements in chapters one and five of his Indiana Manifesto, “Custer Died for Your Sins.” Although published in 1969 this work lays important historic ground work for understanding the plight of the Indian in the United States. Written during the turbulent civil rights movement, Deloria makes interesting comparisons to the Black struggle for equal rights in the United States. He condemns the contemporary views toward Indians widely help by Whites and argues that Indians are wrongly seen through the historic lens of a pipe smoking, bow and arrow wielding savage. Deloria forcefully views the oppressors and conquerors of the Indian mainly as the United States federal government and Christian missionaries. The author’s overall thesis is that Whites view Indians the way they want to see them which is not based in reality. The resulting behavior of Whites towards Indians shows its affects in the false perception in law and culture.

    Read More

  • Major Problems in American Immigration History

    1424 Words  | 3 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • "Custer Died For Your Sins”

    861 Words  | 2 Pages

    Although the work is 40 years old, “Custer Died for Your Sins” is still relevant and valuable in explaining the history and problems that Indians face in the United States. Deloria book reveals the Whites view of Indians as false compared to the reality of how Indians are in real life. The forceful intrusion of the U.S. Government and Christian missionaries have had the most oppressing and damaging effect on Indians. There is hope in Delorias words though. He believes that as more tribes become more politically active and capable, they will be able to become more economically independent for future generations. He feels much hope in the 1960’s generation of college age Indians returning to take ownership of their tribes problems.

    Read More

  • The Impact Of The Colonization Of Turtle Island

    999 Words  | 2 Pages

    Through all stages, a conflict existed between the Indigenous peoples and the United States. Under the illusion of forging a new democracy, free of hierarchies and European monarchies, the United States used the plantation labor of enslaved Africans and dispossessed massive numbers of Native peoples from their lands and cultures to conquer this land.15 Many Americans continue to experience the social, political, cultural and economic inequalities that remain in our Nation

    Read More

  • The Myth of the Old West

    2022 Words  | 5 Pages

    All in all, the treatment of the American Indian during the expansion westward was cruel and harsh. Thus, A Century of Dishonor conveys the truth about the frontier more so than the frontier thesis. Additionally, the common beliefs about the old west are founded in lies and deception. The despair that comes with knowing that people will continue to believe in these false ideas is epitomized by Terrell’s statement, “Perhaps nothing will ever penetrate the haze of puerile romance with which writers unfaithful to their profession and to themselves have surrounded the westerner who made a living in the saddle” (Terrell 182).

    Read More

  • Native American Policy

    622 Words  | 2 Pages

    In the 30 years after the Civil War, although government policy towards Native Americans intended to shift from forced separation to integration into American society, attempts to "Americanize" Indians only hastened the death of their culture and presence in the America. The intent in the policy, after the end of aggression, was to integrate Native Americans into American society. Many attempts at this were made, ranging from offering citizenship to granting lands to Indians. All of these attempts were in vain, however, because the result of this policies is much the same as would be the result of continued agression.

    Read More

  • Fredrick Jackson Turner Frontier Thesis Summary

    431 Words  | 1 Pages

    These “terms” had been laid out for over 100 years through art, literature, film and public discourse. Many discussions of the West in the collective imagination inevitably begin with Fredrick Jackson Turner and his influential essay The significance of the Frontier in American History, commonly referred to as the Frontier Thesis (in fn both the catalogue and under an open sky begin by referencing Turner). Turner’s seminal work was presented almost 100 years before TWAA at the 1893 World’s Fair, just three years after the 1890 census declared that the frontier was closed. Turner’s work was not necessarily original but is the most coherent and influential articulation of the phenomenon. The frontier was defined as a continuously westward moving line of European settlement, “where savage met civilisation” in crude, nineteenth century terms.

    Read More

  • Review of the Article “How the West was Lost”

    1092 Words  | 3 Pages

    In the article review “ How the West was Lost” the author, William T. Hagan explains that in a brief thirty-eight year period between 1848 and 1886, the Indians of the Western United States lost their fight with the United States to keep their lands. While nothing in the article tells us who Hagan is, or when the article was written, his central theme of the article is to inform us of how the Indians lost their lands to the white settlers. I found three main ideas in the article that I feel that Hagan was trying to get across to us. Hagan put these events geographically and chronologically in order first by Plains Indians, then by the Western Indians.

    Read More

More about American Frontier Thesis

Open Document