Frederick Jackson Turner’s Reliance on the Myth of an Unoccupied Americ

The Frontier Thesis has been very potent in peoples understanding of the Statesn values, government and destination until fairly recently. Frederick Jackson food turner outlines the frontier thesis in his strain The Significance of the Frontier in American History. He argues that elaborateness of society at the frontier is what explains Americas individuality and ruggedness. Furthermore, he argues that the communitarian values experienced on the frontier carry over to Americas unique perspective on democracy. This topic has been pervasive in studies of American History until fairly recently when it has come under testing for numerous reasons. In his essay The Trouble with wild or, Getting confirm to the Wrong Nature, William Cronon argues that many scholars, food turner included, fall victim to the treasonably notion that a uncreated, untouched around the benderness existed before European intervention. Turners argument does indeed rely on the idea of pristine wilde rness, especially because he fails to notice the serious impact that Native Americans had on the landscape of the Americas before Europeans set foot in America. Turner fails to score the extent to which Native Americans existed in the Wilderness of the Americas before the frontier began to advance. Turners thesis relies on the idea that easterners in moving to the wild unsettled lands of the frontier, shed the trappings of civilization and by reinfused themselves with a vigor, an independence, and a creativity that the source of American democracy and national character. (Cronon) While this idea seems like a satisfying theory of why Americans are unique, it relies on the notion that the Frontier was an area of free land, which is not the case, undermining the the... ...icans lived in and meek the land around them millennia before European settlers arrived.Works CitedCronon, William The Trouble with Wilderness or, Getting Back to the Wrong Nature ed., Uncommon Ground Rethin king the human beings Place in Nature, New York W. W. Norton & Co., 1995, 69-90Denevan, William M. The Pristine Myth The Landscape of the Americas in 1492. The Pristine Myth The Landscape of the. Northern Arizona University, Web. 25 Mar. 2014. Krech, Shepard. The bionomical Indian Myth and History. New York W.W. Norton &, 1999. Print.Solnit, Rebecca. Spectators. Savage Dreams A Journey into the mystic Wars of the American West. San Francisco Sierra Club, 1994. 228-47. Print.Turner, Frederick Jackson. The Significance of the Frontier in American History, student Primary Sources. Annenberg Learner, Web. 25 Mar. 2014.