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American history 11 ch.13 changes on the western frontier
Effect of gold rush
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The Western Frontier
The western frontier is full of many experiences that changed the frontier. Each significant event has an important role on the shaping of society and way it influenced a new nation. Each author brought a new perspective and thought process to the western experience which either contradicted Turner or supported his theories. The frontier ideas that interested me include topics such as trading frontier, farming frontier, nationality and government, and the neglecting of women.
Frontiers shaped the west and how settlers approached it. Each different frontier had a different affect on people and the ways they lived life. The trading frontier created and established a good and bad relationship with the natives. The Norsemen, Vespuccius, Verraconi, Hudson, and John Smith all trafficked furs and other goods to Native Americans. They trafficked goods all the way from Maine to Georgia, which then led to the opening of river courses to trade farther in the continent. After getting involved in the trading, native power was getting undermined by making them dependent on the whites "Turner p.25". Traders soon turned the roads into turnpikes and turnpikes into railroads. The river systems that traders trafficked goods turned into cities such as Albany, Pittsburg, Detroit, Chicago, St. Louis, and Kansas City. These areas were then all settled by frontiersmen who led the start of the farming frontier.
The farming frontier created a homestead for the western travelers. The important center of attraction for the farmers was fertile soil, salt springs, mines, and army post. Fertile soil was the main attraction because they could easily start growing produce and sell it for product to the frontiersmen or natives. Settlers would make individual pilgrimages east to the salt springs because it was important for the preservation of food. Turner's farmers conquered a wilderness and extended what Thomas Jefferson had called an empire of Liberty "White, p.50". They would bring cattle, furs, ginseng root, to trade for the salt. The farmer's frontier came into affect in a series of waves. The pioneer wave depended upon the natural growth of vegetation and proceeds of hunting. The next group of immigrants or pioneers purchased land to put roads, houses, orchards, and mills to create towns. Finally the enterprise wave came to sell out and take advantage of rise in property "Turner p.29". They would buy land and build on it and then sell it to make profit.
Farmers began to cultivate vast areas of needed crops such as wheat, cotton, and even corn. Document D shows a picture of The Wheat Harvest in 1880, with men on earlier tractors and over 20-30 horses pulling the tractor along the long and wide fields of wheat. As farmers started to accumilate their goods, they needed to be able to transfer the goods across states, maybe from Illinios to Kansas, or Cheyenne to Ohmaha. Some farmers chose to use cattle trails to transport their goods. Document B demonstrates a good mapping of the major railroads in 1870 and 1890. Although cattle trails weren't used in 1890, this document shows the existent of several cattle trails leading into Chyenne, San Antonio, Kansas City and other towns nearby the named ones in 1870. So, farmers began to transport their goods by railroads, which were publically used in Germany by 1550 and migrated to the United States with the help of Colonel John Stevens in 1826. In 1890, railroads expanded not only from California, Nebraska, Utah, Wyoming and Nevada, but up along to Washington, Montana, Michigan, down to New Mexico and Arizona as well. Eastern States such as New Jersey, Tennesse, Virginia and many others were filled with existing railroads prior to 1870, as Colonel John Stevens started out his railroad revolutionzing movement in New Jersey in 1815.
Turner, Frederick Jackson. "The Significance of the Frontier in American History," Learner: Primary Sources. Annenberg Learner, Web. 25 Mar. 2014.
Because of westward expansion, America gained a significant amount of fertile land which contributed to the nation 's’ agrarian identity. The wilderness and landscape
According to the thesis of Fredrick Jackson Turner, the frontier changed America. Americans, from the earliest settlement, were always on the frontier, for they were always expanding to the west. It was Manifest Destiny; spreading American culture westward was so apparent and so powerful that it couldn’t be stopped. Turner’s Frontier Theory says that this continuous exposure to the frontier has shaped the American character. The frontier made the American settlers revert back to the primitive, stripping them from their European culture. They then created something brand new; it’s what we know today as the American character. Turner argues that we, as a culture, are a product of the frontier. The uniquely American personality includes such traits as individualism, futuristic, democratic, aggressiveness, inquisitiveness, materialistic, expedite, pragmatic, and optimistic. And perhaps what exemplifies this American personality the most is the story of the Donner Party.
The availability of inexpensive land in the American West provided opportunity for many Americans to fulfill the American dream of individualism, economic opportunity and personal freedom. Immigrants, former slaves and other settlers moved across the country to become western farmers and ranchers to make a new life. One of the reasons why the west was a land of opportunity for the farmers and ranchers was the large quantity of cheap available land. This allowed for many Americans, both rich and poor, to buy land for farming and raising cattle. The Homestead Act of 1862 aided the process. The Homestead Act gave title to 160 acres of federal land to farmers who staked a claim and lived on the land for five years. Alternatively, a farmer could buy the land after six months for $1.25 an acre. Many blacks and immigrants joined the westward expansion, looking for a better life. Immigrants saw the land as opportunity because many could not own land in the countries where they were born. For example, in Nebraska, a fourth of the population was foreign born. These immigrants transformed...
The development of the transcontinental railroad was the most devastating technological development that affected the Plains Indians. Although the railroad was powerful and helpful to the white man, it was not for the Plains Indians. The transcontinental railroad was the reason why the westward movement of the white man happened so quickly. With the white man moving westward they found valuable land for agricultural, which to be the Plains Indians land, and they found a lot of gold mines. During the time of the building of the transcontinental railroad a lot of white man killed the buffalo. They found that as a sport, and even to use it to harm the Plains Indians. At that time the buffalo was a main source of food, fur, and a hunting lifestyle for the Plains Indians and by the white man killing it off it effectively hurt them. The white man killed the buffalo in large amount of numbers that they almost made them go instinct, and they hurt the Plains Indians huge. Although the Plains Indians did kill the buffalo for their food and furs, their hunting did not have a large impact on the buffalo population. Also, the transcontinental railroad went through the land that the Plains Indians lived on. They were forced to move into smaller areas that were designated by the government. A lot of wars happened over this issue, and over the issue of gold being on their land.
When looking at the vast lands of Texas after the Civil War, many different people came to the lands in search for new opportunities and new wealth. Many were lured by the large area that Texas occupied for they wanted to become ranchers and cattle herders, of which there was great need for due to the large population of cows and horses. In this essay there are three different people with three different goals in the adventures on the frontier lands of Texas in its earliest days. Here we have a woman's story as she travels from Austin to Fort Davis as we see the first impressions of West Texas. Secondly, there is a very young African American who is trying his hand at being a horse rancher, which he learned from his father. Lastly we have a Mexican cowboy who tries to fight his way at being a ranch hand of a large ranching outfit.
Frontier in American History is divided in two major parts each with an introduction. The first part claims that the gradual settlement of the west is what forms American History. In the following four paragraphs the frontier is explained in details. The frontier is viewed as a moving belts
opportunity. Loads of animals and fertile farm land were enticing enough for people to follow. The land known as the frontier was full of danger, however. Intense heat, predators and territorial Indians guarded the large amount of wealth in the west. Cowboys Westward Expansion Cowboys in the Old West were not all giddy and heroic. They had jobs to do that were difficult and did not have a lot of leisure time. On the silver screen, cowboys were portrayed as old, fighting men. In reality, they were usually just reaching adulthood and did not have their own family. Although there were not many African American and Hispanic cowboys in the movies, they made up a large amount of the cowboys in reality. During the spring, cowboys would move
Post Civil War, America was looking for new opportunities to become a stronger and more efficient nation. Though reconstruction collapsed, they took the opportunity of the Manifest Destiny to gain the territories of the Louisiana Purchase and the Mexican-American War and settle the west. With this expansion, it provided numerous opportunities for the people to gain success alongside the nation. The gold rush caused an increase in immigration that brought more people to the newly flourishing nation, and allowed the west coast to become settled as well as help the economy from the new wealth. The land that was gained in the Louisiana Purchase provided the Great Plains, where pioneers settled and ranching operations were run. Though it sadly pushed away the native tribes who originally lived there, throughout the gilded age the government has tried to return to them their land and rights – and gives them reparations today. All of which provided a basis to the American dream that gave the opportunity for a better life to many people. Towns and economy was...
Western expansion not only affected the lives of many Americans, but the Natives living on the land. Throughout the 1860s to 1890s, the West movement altered the lives of Native Americans forever. Settlers deconstructed the Native Americans land with the mindset to grow their economy. Americans attacked and killed large numbers of Native Americans for no reasonable reason. Western expansion affected the lives of Native Americans because the Americans were damaging their land.
In 1865 the frontier line generally followed the western limits of the states bordering the Mississippi River, bulging outward to include the eastern sections of Kansas and Nebraska. Beyond this thin edge of pioneer farms, lay the prairie and sagebrush lands that stretched to the foothills of the Rocky Mountains. Then, for nearly 1,600 kilometers, loomed the huge bulk of mountain ranges, many rich in silver, gold and other metals. On the far side, plains and deserts were part of this region; here laid the "Last Frontier"--- the "Great Plains". "For a long time, the region had been called the Great American Dessert, a barrier to cross on the way to the Pacific, unfit for human habitation and therefore, to white Americans, the perfect refuge for Indians." (Tindall 857) Apart from the settled districts in California and scattered outposts, the vast inland region was populated by Native Americans: among them the Great Plains tribes -- Sioux and Blackfoot, Pawnee and Cheyenne -- and the Indian cultures of the Southwest, including Apache, Navajo, and Hopi. Soon these Indians were pushed away from their "safe haven". "They lost an estimated 86 million acres of their 130 million acres."(Tindall 873) The reason to this is because the white man went westward to expand.
Frederick Jackson Turner and Patricia Nelson Limerick are two historians that had two different points of views to define the West and its history. The West usually refers to the present-day states of California, Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Utah, Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, Kansa, Nebraska, Oklahoma, Texas, Montana, Wyoming, North Dakota, and South Dakota, Iowa, Missouri, Arkansas, Louisiana ( Patricia Nelson, p.8). The first view put forth by Fredrick Turner in the 1890s explained that the movement of American settlers westward, was a process and “ its a form of society rather than a area” (Turner, p. 2). Less than a century later, New Western Historians analyzed that the West is a place that has diverse people, with diverse ethnicity,
In 1862 Congress Passed the Pacific Railroad Act to establish railroad lines across the U.S. The act provided for large land grants and funding to two of the major railroad companies in the Union Pacific and Central Railroad companies. This helped the development of the transcontinental railroad, which would stretch across the Great Plains to the west coast. The act ultimately awarded over 170 million acres of land to railroad companies to help move along the settlement of the west by improving the means of shipment and transportation. As a result in the large investment railroad companies made in developing the transportation of the west they promoted the land by often helping relocate immigrants and eastern Americans to the plains. Once there German and Irish immigrants often got job's laying track or were sometimes persuaded by the railroad companies to farm and produce cash crops to help repay the debts owed to them for transportation. Many Americans went west in search of land to farm. It is in the land that these settlers came in search of that Congress once again helped contribute to the economic advancement of the west.
Farmer’s had difficulties making a living because the rates of being a farmer was high. “Nothing has done more to injure the western region than these freight rates.” (Quoted from Document F) The high rates of being a farmer made it very difficult to make payments on the lands. Some farmers couldn’t even sell their produce for a reasonable profit. They worked long, hard hours and the government wasn’t on their side about paying them a decent income. Along with farm prices failing, railroad prices were increasing. Railroads were important very to farmers because they took farmers out to their lands, carried their produce to markets, and brought them the manufactured goods that they needed. Many farm settlements were made around railroads just because of this reason. Railroad managers were forced to charge very high rates and because of it, farmers would have to pay more money to use railroads.