Analysis Of Frederick Hollitz's 'Manifest Destiny' By Frederick Jackson Turner

Essay #2
In Frederick Jackson Turner’s essay, he talked about how he thought the West was where true American character was formed and that the West was the birthplace of democracy. However, in my perspective I don’t only feel that Turner was inaccurate in his analysis, but also very racist and selfish. I believe that Turner wanted to justify why taking over the West would be so necessary and beneficial to Americans. He stated several things in his essay that were obviously undermined by many primary sources in Hollitz’s book. At the time Americans took on the ideology of Manifest Destiny, which basically was the belief that Americans were destined to expand from coast to coast in North America despite the fact that there was people already occupying land on

Essentially what he is referring to when he says savagery are the Mexican and Native American people on West. By civilization he obviously is referring to himself and the Americans. From there you can see the judgment Turner has about other people who are not white. He also takes a moment to refer to the market revolution and how it drastically differs from how civilization is on the West. Turner states, “The wilderness masters the colonist. It finds him a European in dress, industries, tools, modes of travel, and thought… It strips off the garments of civilization and arrays him in the hunting shirt and the moccasin” (Hollitz,166). As you can see here Turner is again trying to make it seem people on the West are uncivilized by to trying to differentiate how the West is compared to the American East. However, the market revolution astoundingly put the Americans ahead of anyone else near them in terms of evolution with the creation of railroads, canals, steam engines, boats, etc. Foner also talks about this and says “Improvements in