Frederick Jackson Turner Significance Of The Frontier Thesis

Frederick Jackson Turner’s thesis in his work, Significance of the Frontier is “The existence of an area of free land, its continuous recession, and the advance of American settlement westward, explain American development” (p 31). The expansion of people into the new frontier is his way of explaining American development. The problem with this thesis is although he makes good points, which are the way in which people moved out bringing families and brining a new way of living. The frontier not the most important part of history, slavery is far more impactful to shaping American history than Turner’s idea of the frontier. Slavery brought in the dehumanization of African people in America, furthermore, it caused one of the bloodiest wars in

the United States Turner’s inability to give credit to the other more important aspects of shaping American history is a large glaring problem in his history.

First, slavery lead to one of the bloodiest wars in United States history. The Civil War started over slavery and the southern states rights to maintain their right. Within the document, South Carolina Ordinance of Secession (1860), “Those states have assumed the right of deciding upon the propriety of our domestic institutions, and have denied the rights of property established in fifteen of the States and recognized by the constitution; they have denounced as sinful the institution of Slavery;” (p 280). This is part of the succession documents illustrates the reason why South Carolina left the Union. They are calling slaves their property and the government attempting to take away their property is a direct threat against the state. The authors point is to showcase that the foundation of the civil

war is slavery. Furthermore, the north was fighting to end slavery as well. In the section of Slavery Must be Cleaned Out, a message wrote to home had this in a part, “I have no heart in this war if the slaves cannot go free” (p 117). This is under the context that this was not every Union soldier and maybe not the majority, however, the author points out that the Union soldiers understood the context behind what they were fighting for. Some may claim that the war was about state’s rights, however, slavery was the foundation for the civil war, one of the bloodiest wars that shaped the future of America and is a large stepping stone into the future that America is now. The idea that Turner claimed that the most American and impactful thing is the frontier, lacks real basis. Six-hundred-thousand people laid down their life, on both sides, to fight for or against the existence of slavery in the south.
The second aspect of slavery is the ever-present racial separation that has been bred into American society.

People continue to die and fight for these rights. Slavery is a distinct type of servitude that has a master and a servant, however, different from the old English Lord and peasant’s relationship, the servants in slavery have no rights, and they are property. An interesting idea that comes about while describing American slavery is in, George Alsop on the Benefits of Servitude, he makes a few claims, one being that servitude is necessary and he also claims that no country can be stable without it, furthermore, people would not be able to live without it (p. 96). This statement makes the claim that without any servitude there is no way for a government to form. However, he views the servitude of learning a trade or something like that of slavery. That is the dangerous connection that he makes here. Of course, there must be servitude, bosses hold power over the employees, however, complete dehumanization and the lack of rights given to people is not the same. So, these slave owners saw their slaves as their workers, however, they didn’t pay them, did not care about their health, or stop themselves from killing them. This view is part of the problem that lead to great wealth in the south. They had people working without any legal repercussions to pay them or make sure they are okay. Evidence of the old south and the complete dehumanization of Africans, is a story coming

from Josiah Henson in, Uncle Tom’s Story of His Life: An Autobiography of the Rev. Josiah Henson, the story explains a man attempting to rape his mother, his father struck the white man attempting to rape his wife (although not legally because of the lack of rights). The authorities punish the father, which includes a string of punishments ending up in execution. The real problem here is that near the ending of the story, other black people said the father deserved what he got. That they should never raise a hand to a white man. (p. 341) This example speaks for itself. The slaves accepted their punishment and thought they deserved what they got. They had lost themselves in the punishment. This treatment of slaves during the times concluding in the war is one of the largest and currently on-going.
Although Turner wrote his piece in 1893, over one-hundred years ago his story of the importance of the American frontier falls flat on the ideas of a true America. It does not explain the fact that there were similar experiences in South America, meaning that this experience was not solely American. America fought a war to help end slavery in the south, although all soldiers may not have been solely attempting to end slavery they knew that part of their task was to end slavery. The civil war is the bloodiest American war and is polarizing in the 21st century. The dehumanization of slaves resonates through all parts of American society. The Civil War was fought over whether slaves were property. Furthermore, there were laws during and after Turner’s piece that allowed for discrimination of Africans and it is not until the 1960’s that there were put away. Slavery has affected American culture and American history for more than 200 years. Slavery is one of the largest atrocities committed by the United States and their affect is far and wide and much deeper than the frontier that Turner theorized.