From long before the arrival of white Europeans to modern day society, what can currently be defined as the Western United States has been a subject of constant fluidity of definition and curious, encroaching onlookers. Consisting of a substantial chunk of the United States, the west is a large part of the history and identity of the country. Due to its importance in both forming what became the United States as it is known today and maintaining the balance of and participating in modern day government, understanding the history and development of the west is crucial. The text The American West by Stephen Aron dives into this history head on, providing a detailed yet brief explanation of the west from pre-European settlement to modern day. …show more content…
Although the text covers a large time period the development of the west as presented by the novel follows a series of themes which allow for a complete and thorough portrayal of its history: the repeated attempt at defining an ever-expanding west as it continues to grow through the fuel of power hungry and desperate settlers, the abuse of native peoples and prevalence of ethnocentrism and racism in settled lands for the direct benefit of the white Euro-Americans, and the encroaching of new settlers and threats leading to battles over land and dwindling resources.
One theme that was expanded upon immensely was the theme of attempting to define the growing west and the desperation for power that came with said growth. This growth past ones region extends far beyond the scope of white America, the novel starting with this aspect of history in the twelfth century with the Native American settlement of Pueblo Bonita. Though the detailing on the history of the Natives in this area was limited, Aron begins to touch on the idea of moving “west” as lack of resources and drought force the native people to abandon their city for somewhere better. The moving west is increased exponentially as the time of Christopher Columbus comes at hand, with Aron writing that “his arrival created a new west” (Aron 20). It is at this point where his descriptions of history become truly in depth, allowing for the reader to develop an understanding of the idea of a changing west. This quote lays down the foundation for what the west would start out as: around this time the first contact with North America on the East Coast were as west as the European world had ever gotten. However as time …show more content…
develops this definition of west is quick to follow suit. Starting with mere trading ports, the west soon becomes the development of colonies and is fast to extend across much of the current East Coast.
As the idea of the west changes once again, colonists begin to claim Kentucky as their new west, quickly followed by the Northwest Territories. The Louisiana purchase is added soon after, followed by Florida. A common theme throughout the book, it seems as though every time the colonists begin to get a grasp on what can be considered their “west”, the west simply shifts further away. Though the timeline of when these changes come on is fast and slightly jumbled the message is clear: the west is an ever-changing land with no distinct definition, and no end of growth in sight. Aron has the numbers to back up this claim as well, stating that “the American population… [had] doubled every twenty-five years during the eighteenth century” (Aron 40), a population growth that only continued as the Louisiana purchase “doubled the territory” (Aron 41) of America in 1803, followed soon after by the addition of Florida. Aron points towards manifest destiny as the reason for the constant shift in the definition of the west as it drives more “expansion-minded Americans” (Aron 45) further away from the original settlements. The hunger for more land and greed for expansion continues to grow as time goes on, with the
Californian Gold Rush bringing “tens of thousands [of men] in 1849 and succeeding years” (Aron 54). These were all men with nothing but power and money in their mind, and their immigration westwards not only redefines the American west once again but also solidifies the idea of a desperation for power and wealth as the driving factor behind it. Aron also makes a point to show that the white Americans would stop at nothing to take the new lands, as he speaks of the “numerous claimants” (Aron 83) of the lands who came before the Europeans. He also details the stubbornness and preservation of the Americans to take new lands, speaking on how they would attempt to “reclaim [the land] from nature” (Aron 70) and promote “permanent climate change” (Aron 74) just so they could control the entire region. The Euro-Americans would stop at nothing to gain the power and land domination that they desired, driving them to constantly move more west, and thus have to repeatedly try and fail to define the west that they were always changing. As the novel draws to an end Aron reiterates the idea of an ever-expanding, ever-changing definition and view of the “west”, writing that the novel serves to offer readers a place to “contemplate multiple wests” (Aron 95), and that the west is still continuing to grow and change to this day.
The West is a very big part of American culture, and while the myth of the West is much more enticing than the reality of the west, it is no doubt a very big part of America. We’re constantly growing up playing games surrounded by the West such as cowboys and Indians and we’re watching movies that depict the cowboy to be a romanticized hero who constantly saves dames in saloons and rides off into the sunset. However, the characters of the West weren’t the only things that helped the development of America; many inventions were a part of the development of the West and helped it flourish into a thriving community. Barbed wire, the McCormick reaper and railroads—for example—were a large part of the development in the West—from helping to define claimed land boundaries, agricultural development and competition, and even growth of the West.
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” .
During the years surrounding James K. Polk's presidency, the United States of America grew economically, socially, and most noticeably geographically. In this time period, the western boundaries of the Untied States would be expanded all the way to the Pacific Ocean. Many Americans in the 19th century believed that the acquisition of this territory to the west was their right and embraced the concept of "Manifest Destiny". This concept was the belief that America should stretch from sea to shining sea and it was all but inevitable. Under the cover of "Manifest Destiny", President Polk imposed his views of an aggressive imperialistic nation. Imperialism is the practice of extending the power and dominion of a nation by direct territorial acquisitions over others, and clearly America took much of this land by force rather than peaceful negotiations with other nations. Polk acquired three huge areas of land to include: the Republic of Texas, the Oregon Territory, and the states of California, Nevada, Utah, Arizona, and New Mexico under the Mexican Cession.
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.
As history cascades through an hourglass, the changing, developmental hands of time are shrouded throughout American history. This ever-changing hourglass of time is reflected in the process of maturation undertaken by western America in the late nineteenth century. Change, as defined by Oxford’s Dictionary, is “To make or become different through alteration or modification.” The notion of change is essential when attempting to unwind the economic make-up of Kansas in the 1880’s and 1890’s. Popular culture often reveres the American cowboy, which has led him to become the predominate figure in America’s “westering” experience (Savage, p3). However, by 1880 the cowboy had become a mythical figure rather than a presence in western life. The era of the cowboy roaming the Great Plains had past and farmers now sought to become the culturally dominant figure and force in the American West. Unlike the cowboys, farmers were able to evolved, organizing and establishing the Populist Party. The farmers’ newly formed political organization provided them with a voice, which mandated western reform. Furthermore, the populist ideas spread quickly and dominated western thought in the 1880’s and 1890’s. The period of the 1880’s and 1890’s marked the end of the American cowboy and gave farmers a political stronghold that would forever impact the modernization of the West.
The West: From Lewis and Clark and Wounded Knee: The Turbulent Story of the Settling of Frontier America.
American imperialists had in mind to control the West Coast even before the Louisiana Purchase. “But no historian has yet dramatized the story of how Americans began, even before they acquired Louisiana, to view the ocean as their next frontier.” Acquiring the West Coast would give U.S shorter trading route to Asia than Europe had, and a path for further territorial expansion. At the same time, Americans would have controlled vast natural resources like gold and agricultural properties. In 1830s and 40s, w...
Westward movement is the populating of lands, by the Europeans, in what is now known as the United States. The chief resolution of the westward expansion is economic betterment. The United States story begins with westward expansion and even before the Revolutionary war, early settlers were migrating westward into what is now known as the states of Kentucky,Tennessee, parts of the Ohio Valley and the South. Westward Expansion was slowed down by the French and the Native Americans, however the Louisiana Purchase significantly improved the expansion efforts. Westward expansion was enabled because of wars, the displacement of Native American Indians, buying land, and treaties. This paper will discuss the effects of westward expansion on domestic politics and on American relations with other nations.
While the US may have prided themselves in the fact that we didn’t practice imperialism or colonialism, and we weren’t an Empire country, the actions conquering land in our own country may seem to rebuff that claim. In the 19th century, the West was a synonym for the frontier, or edge of current settlement. Early on this was anything west of just about Mississippi, but beyond that is where the Indian tribes had been pushed to live, and promised land in Oklahoma after policies like Indian removal, and events like the Trail of Tears. Indian’s brief feeling of security and this promise were shattered when American’s believed it was their god given right, their Manifest Destiny, to conquer the West; they began to settle the land, and relatively quickly. And with this move, cam...
The United States, as a young nation, had the desire to expand westward and become a true continental United States that stretched from the Atlantic to the Pacific. Various factors, strategic and economic, contributed to the desire to expand westward. According to John O’Sullivan, as cited by Hestedt in Manifest Destiny 2004; "the U.S. had manifest destiny to overspread the continent allotted by Providence to the free development of our yearly multiplying millions" (¶2). As Americans ventured westward to settle the frontier, their inherent superior beliefs, culture and the principles of democracy accompanied them. America’s ruthless ambition to fulfill its manifest destiny had a profound impact on the nation’s economy, social systems and foreign and domestic policies; westward expansion was a tumultuous period in American History that included periods of conflict with the Native Americans and Hispanics and increased in sectionalism that created the backdrop for the Civil War.
Over the years, the idea of the western frontier of American history has been unjustly and falsely romanticized by the movie, novel, and television industries. People now believe the west to have been populated by gun-slinging cowboys wearing ten gallon hats who rode off on capricious, idealistic adventures. Not only is this perception of the west far from the truth, but no mention of the atrocities of Indian massacre, avarice, and ill-advised, often deceptive, government programs is even present in the average citizen’s understanding of the frontier. This misunderstanding of the west is epitomized by the statement, “Frederick Jackson Turner’s frontier thesis was as real as the myth of the west. The development of the west was, in fact, A Century of Dishonor.” The frontier thesis, which Turner proposed in 1893 at the World’s Columbian Exposition, viewed the frontier as the sole preserver of the American psyche of democracy and republicanism by compelling Americans to conquer and to settle new areas. This thesis gives a somewhat quixotic explanation of expansion, as opposed to Helen Hunt Jackson’s book, A Century of Dishonor, which truly portrays the settlement of the west as a pattern of cruelty and conceit. Thus, the frontier thesis, offered first in The Significance of the Frontier in American History, is, in fact, false, like the myth of the west. Many historians, however, have attempted to debunk the mythology of the west. Specifically, these historians have refuted the common beliefs that cattle ranging was accepted as legal by the government, that the said business was profitable, that cattle herders were completely independent from any outside influence, and that anyone could become a cattle herder.
As the United States grew in power, so did her ideas of expansion. The foreign powers were beginning to move out of their continents and seek land in other countries. The United States soon followed. They followed in their founder’s footsteps and tried to occupy lands in the far seas. However, in the beginning, this need for more land was called Manifest Destiny. This idea claimed that God was forcing them to occupy the new western lands. The expansionism that occurred in the late 1800’s was not a result of Manifest Destiny, and thus this "new" idea of expansionism was different from the expansionism ideas of early America. For the most part, the United States’ need for more land was primarily to keep other nations (mainly European powers) out of the western hemisphere. However the United States began to see reason behind change towards the "new" expansionistic ideas.
McNeill, William H., 1998. How the West Won. New York: The New York Review of Books, 2-4
Analysing The West: Unique, Not Universal. Throughout history, Western civilization has been an emerging force behind change in foreign societies. This is the concept that is discussed in the article, the West Unique, Not Universal, written by Samuel Huntington. The author makes a very clear thesis statement and uses a variety of evidence to support it. This article has a very convincing point.
Lynn Hunt et al., The Making of the West: peoples and cultures, a Concise History (Boston:Bedford/St. Martin's, 2003), 43, 45, 132, 136, 179-180