The United States of America was developed and grew over the course of centuries. The first settlers of the land built colonies and developed the land agriculturally. After the land of the Mississippi was bought by the United States in 1803, a surge of expansion was sent westward. The newly owned land however did not act as boundary to the American frontier, the country continued to move westward, cultivating the land and forming towns that have evolved into metropolises along the west most part of the continent. The means in which this land we call America became property of the United States however was often violent and rarely contested by the majority. Throughout the colonization and expansion of America, several forms of entitlement were
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The modern ability to look back at vast amounts of history makes it more accessible to discern, while those who used entitlement as a tool of dominance were not as fortunate, subject to only recent history and developmental momentum. John Winthrop was of English decent, carrying with him strong Puritan beliefs widespread during the formation of New England at the time in which he dictated “A Model of Christian Charity” in 1630. John L. O’Sullivan was the editor of the United States Democratic Review and lived through the thick of the Mexican-American War before writing “Annexation” in 1845. Fredrick Jackson Turner was a historian born to a new breed of college educated scholars, and wrote “The Significance of the Frontier in American History” in 1893 at a time when America had reached its western most boundary and the future was vastly unclear. These three authors all wrote their respective pieces at pivotal times in the American frontier. Though each author can claim immersion in their situation, something a modern historian never can, being able to place their situations in history with its context creates a clearer image of each author’s …show more content…
Turner neglects much of the means in which the west was conquered. “American history has been in a large degree the history of the colonization of the Great West. The existence of an area of free land, its continuous recession, and the advance of American settlement westward, explain American development”(184, Turner) By referring to American expansion of ‘free land’ Turner is essentially denouncing any recognition of Native American insurrection by which the land was achieved. He is calling the expansion natural, personifying the land as one that has naturally gifted itself to America. Turner does a good job not in redefining the frontier, but in personally encompassing the mentality in which expansion was made possible. Because Turner’s views are often analytical rather than structural, he could appear to simply be an outlier of the frontier, but his arrogance pins him with the same self-righteous entitlement as the aforementioned
The modern ability to look back at vast amounts of history makes it more accessible to discern, while those who used entitlement as a tool of dominance were not as fortunate, subject to only recent history and developmental momentum. John Winthrop was of English decent, carrying with him strong Puritan beliefs widespread during the formation of New England at the time in which he dictated “A Model of Christian Charity” in 1630. John L. O’Sullivan was the editor of the United States Democratic Review and lived through the thick of the Mexican-American War before writing “Annexation” in 1845. Fredrick Jackson Turner was a historian born to a new breed of college educated scholars, and wrote “The Significance of the Frontier in American History” in 1893 at a time when America had reached its western most boundary and the future was vastly unclear. These three authors all wrote their respective pieces at pivotal times in the American frontier. Though each author can claim immersion in their situation, something a modern historian never can, being able to place their situations in history with its context creates a clearer image of each author’s …show more content…
Turner neglects much of the means in which the west was conquered. “American history has been in a large degree the history of the colonization of the Great West. The existence of an area of free land, its continuous recession, and the advance of American settlement westward, explain American development”(184, Turner) By referring to American expansion of ‘free land’ Turner is essentially denouncing any recognition of Native American insurrection by which the land was achieved. He is calling the expansion natural, personifying the land as one that has naturally gifted itself to America. Turner does a good job not in redefining the frontier, but in personally encompassing the mentality in which expansion was made possible. Because Turner’s views are often analytical rather than structural, he could appear to simply be an outlier of the frontier, but his arrogance pins him with the same self-righteous entitlement as the aforementioned