The Western Frontier Thesis

The Western Frontier The romanticism of the west employed the frontier as the outer edge of the wave meeting “between savagery and civilization.” To historians, a frontier is “is not a lining of marking the start of an empty place but a zone of interaction where two or more societies vie for the use of land.’ In the “frontier thesis”, Frederick Turner describes the frontier as “gradually peopled.” However, the congress in 1862 funded the transcontinental railroad, the union pacific, and the Homestead Act. This placed Indians, freed slaves, and soldiers in conflict for the next four decades; the conflict eventually led to murder and massacre during the last quarter of the nineteenth century. Although the western frontier is seen as English-speaking pioneers, it is best understood as competing ethnic, religious, and racial groups. During modern era you can see a difference of ethnic equality from present time to old times. In 1871, Arizona civilians descended from peaceful camps and massacred over one hundred Apaches. If anyone asked who was responsible for this, typical western history would suggest
white men. However, the attackers were from different ethnic groups such as Hispanics, Anglo-Americans and Papago Indians. No matter how different the three groups were, they could not manage to coexist. They wanted the land for themselves and any anyone who was not in the same ethnic group and made a habitat in the frontier, their lives were already in danger. In the 20th century, the frontier faced different ethnic groups who migrated to the west.
During the late nineteenth century and early twentieth century, immigrants started to flood the frontier; blacks started moving north, Europeans crossed the Atlantic, like Patricia Limerick said “adaptability in American Society to the test.” The old-stock American debated whether it was better to coexist or exclusion, how can they defend “their” land against these foreign threats. Later, the west became diverse with different ethnic groups and racial groups; this put a strain to simple varieties of racism. The west was then dominated by whites, and blacks were now used as slaves. However, not only did the negros lose their integrity but also the mulatto, and Indians with laws that excluded them from giving any testimony; this law also excluded the
Asians. During the western settlement and the frontier, racial groups were often discriminated. “Black slaves were never allowed to talk to white people other than their masters or with someone their master knew, as they were afraid the white man might have the slave run away.” The masters wanted the slaves to assimilated to ignorance because the slaves who acknowledged intelligence such as reading, writing and arithmetic would be sent in favor to the Union Army. As alluded in 12 Years Of Slavery , Masters were least likely good masters. Masters would give black slaves 150 lashes for not putting diligence in their work. If slaves ran away from their master or physically hurt them in other way, they had the rights to hang them. Black females were used for hospitality service in the whites house and were often raped by their white master.