The Closing of the Frontier
Eng1C Firtha
20 April 2013
The Closing of the Frontier (?) Frederick Jackson Turner described the frontier as “a return to primitive conditions on a continually advancing frontier line” (Turner 530). Turner separates the process of civilization into four phases: “the trader’s frontier, the rancher’s frontier, or the miner’s frontier, and the farmer’s frontier” (Turner 536). After all four stages are completed and there are no more or too few places to settle - the major movement of people is done with - Turner says the frontier is closed. Eric Gary Anderson and I disagree with Frederick Jackson Turner. Turner's description of the frontier is adequate, but fails to account for the many variables present in the Western frontier. The beginning of any frontier is with traders. As people move forward into a new place, they need materials that they are accustomed to. Turner believes the traders must go first so that people may have their creature comforts and necessities, or at least some of them, when they get to their destination or begin their journey. The trader is viewed as the "pathfinder of civilization" (Turner 535), the one who starts breaking the more savage habits of those they encounter. The first traders were the ones who found the ways to pass across, or along, rivers finding the tiniest of mountain passes or the safest or most dangerous routes to take across a desert or plain. The traders discovered how to continue moving West towards new un-owned land that could be cultivated. The frontier took a person with relatively civilized English qualities and forced them to adapt to uncivilized American qualities instead. For example, the traders were the ones who found the salt springs in Kentucky and other places enabling the colonists to move away from dependence on the coast for salt, and finally move on, westward. The borders of the frontier were wilder, to Turner, than the borders of England. The frontier basically had no borders at all; there was no
20 April 2013
The Closing of the Frontier (?) Frederick Jackson Turner described the frontier as “a return to primitive conditions on a continually advancing frontier line” (Turner 530). Turner separates the process of civilization into four phases: “the trader’s frontier, the rancher’s frontier, or the miner’s frontier, and the farmer’s frontier” (Turner 536). After all four stages are completed and there are no more or too few places to settle - the major movement of people is done with - Turner says the frontier is closed. Eric Gary Anderson and I disagree with Frederick Jackson Turner. Turner's description of the frontier is adequate, but fails to account for the many variables present in the Western frontier. The beginning of any frontier is with traders. As people move forward into a new place, they need materials that they are accustomed to. Turner believes the traders must go first so that people may have their creature comforts and necessities, or at least some of them, when they get to their destination or begin their journey. The trader is viewed as the "pathfinder of civilization" (Turner 535), the one who starts breaking the more savage habits of those they encounter. The first traders were the ones who found the ways to pass across, or along, rivers finding the tiniest of mountain passes or the safest or most dangerous routes to take across a desert or plain. The traders discovered how to continue moving West towards new un-owned land that could be cultivated. The frontier took a person with relatively civilized English qualities and forced them to adapt to uncivilized American qualities instead. For example, the traders were the ones who found the salt springs in Kentucky and other places enabling the colonists to move away from dependence on the coast for salt, and finally move on, westward. The borders of the frontier were wilder, to Turner, than the borders of England. The frontier basically had no borders at all; there was no