Westward Expansion: America's Shift in Settling Patterns

582 Words2 Pages

The Census of 1880 and 1890 showed significant settlement in the west. However, these settlements were not close together by any means. In fact, each settlement appeared to be separate from each other. The fact was that the west was changing; there was an advance in American settlement toward the west and a progression of American settlement. According to Turner, the advance west was not across one line, but all across the west. The westward expansion provided new opportunity for everyone. Life in the west was simple. The west was the meeting point between civilization and savagery. It was the edge of the free land with a density of two or more per square mile. With the western expansion, America was changing. American life was different. …show more content…

Most certainly, their knowledge of the western frontier was expanded and their opinions of it were “discovered.” They assuredly saw a different way of life beyond where they were living. His contemporaries may have seen his thesis as very thought provoking, or offensive. Western life was seen as the “fine-line” between savagery and civilization. For some, they may have seen more savagery side of life, while others may have viewed it as just a different way of life. Turner’s contemporaries very likely had various reactions to his thesis. Turner may have very well started arguments concerning western frontier culture. Turner’s thesis concerning western civilization highlights exactly what I pictured to be western culture. The western world was simple. It allowed endless freedom. It provided opportunity for something new. It provided religious and educational opportunities. The movement toward the west was the beginning of something great. “It is equally plain that the religious and political destiny of our nation is to be decided in the West, it is assembled from all the States of the Union and from all the nations of Europe, and is rushing in like the waters of the flood, demanding for its moral preservation the immediate and universal action of those institutions which discipline the mind and arm the conscience and the

Show More
Related

  • Westward Expansion DBQ Essay

    1879 Words  | 4 Pages

    Permissiveness coupled with a self-righteous entitlement is not considered very flattering on anyone, much less a developing young country. The loose handle the US government had in the 1800s on its land-hungry constituents contributed to the worst (but among the most overlooked) genocide in recorded history. The few preventative actions taken by the federation to slow the quickening roll of excessive expansion were overruled or overlooked by the citizens. Deciding that the east coast was no longer enough to satiate their appetite for possession, they looked to the west. Imagining themselves to be Moses, claiming their promised land, the settlers surged westward, citing Manifest Destiny, a concept that suggested providence had intended the

    Read More

  • The Frontier As A Place Of Conquest And Conflict By Patricia N. Limerick

    800 Words  | 2 Pages

    This historical document, The Frontier as a Place of Conquest and Conflict, focuses on the 19th Century in which a large portion of society faced discrimination based on race, ethnicity, and religion. Its author, Patricia N. Limerick, describes the differences seen between the group of Anglo Americans and the minority groups of Native Americans, Asian Americans, Hispanics Americans and African Americans. It is noted that through this document, Limerick exposes us to the laws and restrictions imposed in addition to the men and women who endured and fought against the oppression in many different ways. Overall, the author, Limerick, exposes the readers to the effects that the growth and over flow of people from the Eastern on to the Western states

    Read More

  • Analysis Of The Boyd's The Myth Of A Christian Nation

    1045 Words  | 3 Pages

    Neglect the “Nations of the World” and instead focus on the “Nation of God”. Christians path in life can be boiled down to giving their full allegiance to the Kingdom of God. In doing so they need to denounce the coercive and violent ideologies of the natural world. Translating this to the Christian call to action, we must follow the Kingdom of God in transforming the world, rather than using politics as a means towards such a transformation. This is based upon his destroying of the notion that America is a Christian Nation: “What gives this understanding of the kingdom of God such strong emotional force is the long standing myth that America is a 'Christian nation. ' From the start, Americans have been inclined to believe that God’s will was manifested in the founding of our country and is yet manifested in the global activity of our nation. Throughout our history, most Americans have confidently assumed our nation’s causes and wars were righteous and just and that God was 'on our side. ' In our minds, and often in our churches, the cross and the national flag have gone hand in hand. Consequently, the conservative church has, to a large extent at least, tended to view itself as the religious guardian of all that is godly in our culture. America is a holy city 'set on a hill, ' and the church’s job is to keep it shining” (Reknew). Remove the temptation and allegiance to the natural world and it can and will distract

    Read More

  • Westward Expansion: The Emigrants Of The Oregon Trail

    792 Words  | 2 Pages

    The time of westward expansion was filled of hardships and challenges for the citizens of America. They left their homes at their own will to help make life better for themselves, and would letter recognize how they helped our country expand. The people of the Oregon trail risked their lives to help better their lives and expand and improve the country of America. However, no reward comes without work, and the emigrants of the Oregon Trail definitely had it cut out for them. They faced challenges tougher than anyone elses during the time of westward expansion.The Emigrants of the Oregon trail had the the most difficult time surviving and thriving in the west because of environmental difficulties, illness abundance, and accident occurrence.

    Read More

  • Butch Cassidy And The Sundance Kid Analysis

    765 Words  | 2 Pages

    Frederick Jackson Turner was largely influential in determining Americans’ perceptions of the West. While tracing the history of the American frontier from white settlement to a gradual disappearance in his essay “The Significance of the Frontier in American History” (1893), Turner extolled the American West as a hearth for democracy and other “forces dominating American character” (3). He supports this view by hyperbolically describing the frontier’s effects on settlers, “immigrants were Americanized, liberated, and fused into a mixed race, English in neither nationality nor characteristics” (23). Notably, Turner wrote his essay as a response to the 1890 census’ declaration that the western frontier had become settled land. Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid is set in the late 19th century after the publication of Turner’s essay. The film shows the final stages of the romanticized West’s disappearance evidenced by the two thieves, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance kid, struggling to find places for themselves in the modernizing

    Read More

  • Manifest Destiny: Western Expansion of America

    566 Words  | 2 Pages

    The Manifest Destiny was a progressive movement starting in the 1840's. John O'Sullivan, a democratic leader, named the movement in 1845. Manifest Destiny meant that westward expansion was America's destiny. The land that was added to the U.S. after 1840 (the start of Manifest Destiny) includes The Texas Annexation (1845), The Oregon Country (1846), The Mexican Cession (1848), The Gadsden Purchase (1853), Alaska (1867), and Hawaii (1898). Although this movement would take several years to accomplish fully, things started changing before we knew it. New technology took off right away!

    Read More

  • Westward Expansion In America In The 1800s

    1528 Words  | 4 Pages

    How do you see progress, as a process that is beneficial or in contrast, that it´s a hurtful process that everyone at one point of their lives has to pass through it? At the time, progress was beneficial for the United States, but those benefits came with a cost, such cost that instead of advancements and developments being advantageous factors for humanity, it also became a harmful process in which numerous people were affected in many facets of life. This all means that progress is awsome to achieve, but when achieved, people have to realize the process they had to do to achieve it, which was stepping on other people to get there.

    Read More

  • The Impact of Westward Expansion on The Cherokee Nation

    1470 Words  | 3 Pages

    At the time Andrew Jackson was president, there was a fast growing population and a desire for more land. Because of this, expansion was inevitable. To the west, many native Indian tribes were settled. Andrew Jackson spent a good deal of his presidency dealing with the removal of the Indians in western land. Throughout the 1800’s, westward expansion harmed the natives, was an invasion of their land, which led to war and tension between the natives and America, specifically the Cherokee Nation.

    Read More

  • Prejudice in The Song of Roland

    1724 Words  | 4 Pages

    Perry, Marvin, et al. Western Civilization: Ideas, Politics and Society. 4th ed. Vol. I. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1992.

    Read More

  • Westward Expansion and Those It Affected

    289 Words  | 1 Pages

    America was expanding at such a rapid pace that those who were in America before us had no time to anticipate what was happening. This change in lifestyle affected not only Americans but everyone who lived in the land. Changing traditions, the get rich quick idea and other things were the leading causes of westward expansion. But whatever happened to those who were caught in the middle, those who were here before us?

    Read More

  • Westward Expansion Research Paper

    1114 Words  | 3 Pages

    “By 1840 almost 7 million Americans had migrated westward in hopes of securing land and being prosperous” (Westward Expansion Facts. Westward Expansion Facts. N.p., n.d Web. 16 Sept. 2016). This movement is called Western Expansion. The movement brought new beginnings and hope to many northerners and southerners. Western expansion not only affected the lives of many Americans, but the Natives living on the land. Throughout the 1860s to 1890s, the movement West altered the lives of Native Americans forever. Settlers deconstructed the Native Americans land in the mindset to grow their economy. Americans attacked and killed large amounts of Natives for no reasonable reason. Also, in hopes to Americanize the natives, they taught and imposed their

    Read More

  • The Myth of the Old West

    2022 Words  | 5 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • The True Wild West: A Violent, Godless Wasteland

    1693 Words  | 4 Pages

    Early on the American government dressed up the culture and opportunities that lay in the West to get more westward expansion. The tr...

    Read More

  • Analysis Of The West Unique, Not Universal

    701 Words  | 2 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • Frederick Jackson Turner's Frontier Theory

    351 Words  | 1 Pages

    Frederick Jackson Turner’s popular “Frontier Theory” proposed that American democracy and culture was founded on the western frontier as Americans let go of their European ideals and, instead, accepted egalitarianism, violence, and a new national identity. Although widely accepted by most historians in the mid-twentieth century, Turner’s theory fell into deep scrutiny in the latter half of the century, mainly by Midwestern Historians such as John Mack Faragher. Through his book Sugar Creek: Life on the Illinois Prairie, Faragher sought to demonstrate how life on the western frontier was more comparable to the small, rural villages of medieval Europe rather than the imagined birthplace of American democracy. Most importantly, he focused on the

    Read More

More about Westward Expansion: America's Shift in Settling Patterns

Open Document