Frederick Jackson Turner's Frontier Thesis

Frederick Jackson Turner released his “frontier thesis” in 1893, he concluded that the frontier was key to forming the sense of an American identity. Turner stated that the frontier provided land, which would become a “safety valve” for the impoverished should they revolt. In other words, with the nation reeling from reconstruction and turning right into the gilded age, the poor were very unhappy and perhaps the land there could be used as a way to get rid of them. Jackson's "frontier-thesis" could be challenged by saying that the frontier didn't shape the American identity. Other cultures helped to form the American identity in ways such as Native Americans helping the first settlers to survive, slaves during the pre-civil war era servicing

the booming cotton business in the south, and immigrants during the late 1800s pushing for reform that shaped the workweek we know today.
Indigenous peoples to any region of the world have come to face some sort of discrimination and mistreatment. The Native Americans are not exempt from this rule. As She Walks with Her shawl remembers in The American Spirit;
But I am going to tell you of the greatest battle. This was a fight against Pehin-hanska (General Custer). I was several miles from the Hunkpapa camp when I saw a cloud of dust rise beyond a ridge of bluffs in the east… We girls took towards the camp and saw a warrior ride swiftly, shouting that the soldiers were only a few miles away... My mother told me the news that my brother had been killed by the soldiers…I heard afterwards that the soldiers were under the command of Long Hair (Custer).
The attacking of villages in the west as well as when the American settlers expanded into the frontier were not unheard of. While everyone knows the tale of the classic first “Thanksgiving” between the pilgrims and the Indians, not everyone knows the true story of the colonial relations. During the early colonial ages it was more common for Native Americans to kill or try to fight the newcomers. However, falling into line with the classic tale of the Indians and the pilgrims coming together for a dinner to celebrate a bountiful harvest includes Squanto. As the story goes, Squanto saw that the pilgrims were failing miserably at trying to survive in the New World. He stayed for a winter with them to teach them how to survive and plant crops as well as hunt the local wildlife. While the story of Thanksgiving is heartwarming, She Walks with Her Shawl’s story of Custer’s last stand in attacking her encampment is an eye opener to the sort of cruelty the Native American people faced after their supposed saving of the Pilgrims.
Another form of “foreigners” so to speak shaping the American way is in the form of the African slave trade. Richard Ligon, an English merchant, retells his experiences in a sugar plantation in Barbados;
The Island is divided into three sorts of men, viz. Masters, servants, and slaves… that these should not commit some horrid massacre upon the Christians… their spirits are subjugated to so low a condition, as they dare not look up to any bold attempt… They are fetched from several parts of Africa, who speake several languages, and by that means, one of them understands not another…
As evidenced in the above excerpt, there were many tactics used to keep slaves in a subservient position to the (white) Americans/owners. Quite possibly the most notable form of dominance, was the ability of taking their voice away through language barriers. Of course, the same could be said for communication between slave and slave master.

Slavery between Native Americans was also an issue. As Kennedy’s “The American Spirit, Volume I: To 1877” states, the American Indian trade was also booming. Warmongering tribes would conquer other tribes and sell them as slaves, or keep them as servants for themselves.
As time would go on the Southern way of life would come to revolve around the booming slavery industry as well as slave and indentured servant work on plantations.

The issue of slavery would eventually form into a war on state’s rights and morals. For the time period, the civil war can be considered one of the deadliest American wars. The civil war was comprised of Americans on both the union (anti-slavery and anti-secession) and the confederate side (pro-slavery and pro-secession). The sectional divide over pushing slavery into new territories and over the economy formed by slavery would stay with America centuries after the war.

Following the war was the reconstruction era, which ended in defeat on the Confederate Side, came the freeing of slaves. Many would stay in the south and work as freedmen, go to factories in the north or try their hand at taming the frontier as an exoduster. While slavery was an extremely profitable business in the south, the following century would prove to turn the tables of history. In the 1960s came the Civil Rights Movement, which was headed by Martin Luther King Jr. This revolution came to provide more jobs and opportunities for blacks than ever before, as even after freedom there was not truly equality between the races. In the south there was major segregation and the Plessy vs. Ferguson case only helped to legalize the Jim Crow Laws even

further.
During post-Reconstruction came the Gilded Age, a time of mass corruption. Men such as Andrew Carnegie (a Scotsman) held power over the government through huge monopolies. Carnegie eventually published his Gospel of Wealth in 1889, which stated not to give to the poor, but to use your money through philanthropic endeavors. Carnegie can be quoted as saying;
This, then, is to be held the duty of the man of wealth: first to set an example of modest, unostentatious living, shunning display or extravagance; to provide moderately for the legitimate wants of those dependent upon him; and after doing so consider all surplus revenues which come to him simply as trust funds, which he is called upon to administer, and strictly bound as a matter of duty to produce the most beneficial results for the community…
This sort of attitude is still very prevalent in America today. People seem more likely to help Girl Scouts and buy cookies rather than give a few dollars to a homeless man for a meal. In one instance, that person is getting something in return and helping a group of people (the community). Whereas in the second scenario they’re giving money to one specific person, something that Carnegie was against.
Around this time a new political group called the populists was formed. The populists fought for direct election of senators, secret voting ballots, and a graduated income tax. The populists were usually southern and western farmers.
However, similar groups of people cropped up in the cities. In the cities lived many immigrants who worked long hours for extremely little pay in factories. These factories were extremely dank and dangerous to work in. Famous writer Upton Sinclair published his novel The Jungle, in an attempt to expose the horrors of working in and living off of the wages of a factory.
A polish girl working in a sweatshop, more specifically a garment factory compares the conditions of where she works to her life back in Poland. Her life was quite simplistic in Poland, her mother ran a store to make money and all was well until her father died when she was ten. After his passing they struggled financially and decided to move to America where they’d have an easier time. Her mother died while they were in America, however working during the day and sharing a room with another young girl was manageable for the girl. At first when she started working some of the men she worked with made comments to her, however the boss put an end to this. She gets to work at six in the morning and doesn’t leave until six, meaning she works twelve hour days at 17. Sometimes when she’s sewing the clothes the pin will go through her finger, but she just bandages it up. While her life in Poland may have been well, being seventeen and working twelve hours a day isn’t legal today for a reason. Thanks to labor unions conditions in factories would improve, wages would improve and there would be a set workday (i.e. the nine-to-five) for workers, including children. Eventually child labor would become illegal and there would be limitations put on how many hours teenagers could work, these are still in place today.
Fredrick Jackson Turner’s frontier thesis is wrong. Other cultures helped to form the American identity. Native Americans helped the first settlers to survive, and eventually ended up having to protect themselves from the very people they’d helped to save. Where would America be had those initial colonists not survived? Slaves during the pre-civil war era serviced the booming cotton business in the south, and post-war they formed their own identity that is still prevalent today. Finally, immigrants in labor unions during the late 1800s pushed for reform that shaped the workweek we know today. All of these cultures coming together have earned America the title of the “Melting Pot” today, and we have them to thank for that label.