Christian Medina

01-09-2023

The American Frontier was at first, the settlement of the Great Plains and Far West to be conquered and settled
by Europeans. 

The closing of the frontier troubled Turner.

Three years after the Census Bureau
declaration, historian Frederick Jackson
Turner published a provocative, influential
essay, "The Significance of the Frontier in
American History." He presented the
settling of the frontier as an evolutionary
process of building civilization. The first
were hunters. Following them came cattle
ranchers, miners, and farmers. Finally,
people arrived who founded towns and
cities. Turner argued that 300 years of
frontier experience had shaped American
culture, promoting independence,
individualism, inventiveness, practical-
mindedness, and democracy.
Historians have challenged Turner’s
evolutionary view by arguing that frontier
cities were not a late addition. For example,
19th-century developers or “boosters” tried
to create settlements on the frontier
overnight in the middle of nowhere. After
laying out town plots on paper, boosters
strove to establish their own town as a
territory’s central hub of development by
competing to capture the county seat or
state capital, a state asylum, a railroad
depot, or a college. The cattle ranchers’
frontier developed because it was linked by
the railroads to Chicago and eastern
markets.
The frontier had always held the promise of
a fresh start. Once the frontier was gone,
Turner wondered, would the United States
be condemned to follow the patterns of class
division and social conflict that troubled
Europe? While many debates the Turner
thesis, historians acknowledge that by the
1890s the largest movement of Americans
was not from east to west, it was from rural
communities to the cities. Migrants saw
more opportunities in the industry than in
agriculture. Not only was the era of the
western frontier coming to a close, but the
dominance of rural America was also on a
decline.

During the Sioux War, Sioux The last effort of American

fighters wiped out an army column Indians to resist U.S. government
They lived in They lived in under Captain William Fetterman. controls was the religiously
Pueblos in New permanent settlements Following these wars, another round inspired Ghost Dance
Mexico and AZ and raised corn and of treaties attempted to isolate the movement. Leaders believed it
livestock. Plains Indians on reservations with could return prosperity to
They lived in the They were nomadic hunter- federal agents promising American Indians. In the
Southwest gatherers who adopted a government support.  government’s campaign to
regions. more settled way of life, A new round of conflicts in suppress the movement, the
not only raising crops and the West began in the 1870s. The famous Sioux medicine man
livestock but also Indian Appropriation Act of 1871 Sitting Bull was killed during his
producing arts and crafts. ended recognition of tribes as arrest. Then in December 1890,
They lived in the independent nations by the federal the U.S. Army gunned down
Pacific Northwest They developed complex government and ended negotiation of more than 200 American Indian
(WA and OR) communities based on treaties to be approved by Congress men, women, and children in the
abundant fish and
game.  The constant pressure of
“battle” (massacre) of Wounded
They lived They had given up farming after U.S. Armythe
forced tribe after tribe to
Knee in the Dakotas. This final
in the Great the intro of the horse by the comply with Washington’s terms,
tragedy marked the end of the
Plains (KS Spanish. They became skillful even after the government violated Indian Wars on the blood-
and OK) horse riders and started a way of treaties. In addition, the slaughter of crimsoned prairie. 
life centered on the hunting of most of the buffalo by the early
buffalo. 1880s doomed the way of life of the
Plains peoples.

In 1924, in partial recognition that forced assimilation had

failed, the federal government granted U.S. citizenship to all
The cultural impact A Century of Dishonor had was it made American Indians, whether or not they had complied with
people begin to sympathize with the American Indians and the Dawes Act. As part of President Franklin Roosevelt’s New
also generated support for ending Indian culture through Deal in the 1930s, Congress adopted the Indian
assimilation A new phase in the relationship Reorganization Act (1934), which promoted the re-
between establishment of tribal organization and culture. Since then,
the U.S government and the American the number of people identifying as American Indians have
Act of 1887. The Dawes Act divided
Indianstribal
werelands into plotsinofthe
incorporated up to 160
acres, depending on family size. However, 90 million acres of former
Dawes
increased. Today, more than 3 million American Indians,
reservation land were sold over the years to White settlers by the belonging to 500 tribes, live in the United States. 
government, speculators, or American Indians themselves. The new
policy proved a failure.

The Mexican-American War impacted Latinos in the
West by latinos having to have drawn out legal
proceedings to guarantee their citizenship or property
rights which resulted in losses of land to new Anglo
arrivals.
Mexico’s independence from Spain in 1821 increased trade and cultural
exchange with the United States. The Santa Fe Trail, a nearly 1,000-mile
overland route between Santa Fe, New Mexico, and western Missouri
linked the regions. Mexican landowners in the Southwest and California
were guaranteed their property rights and granted citizenship after the
Mexican War. However, drawn-out legal proceedings often resulted in the
sale or loss of lands to new Anglo arrivals. Many found employment in the
sugar beet fields and the mines of Colorado, and in building railroads
throughout the region. Before 1917, the border with Mexico was open,
and few records were kept for either seasonal workers or permanent
settlers.
The concerns over Congress to Dedicated by the With the closing of the frontier era, Americans grew
deforestation spark preserve such Yosemite to the increasingly concerned about the loss of public lands
ed the conservation western icons as Yellowstone area as and the natural treasures they contained. The Forest
movement. The Yosemite Valley as the first national park Reserve Act of 1891 and the Forest Management Act of
breathtaking a California state in 1872. In the 1800s, 1897 withdrew federal timberlands from development
paintings and park in 1864 (it Secretary of the
photographs of became a national Interior Carl Schurz and regulated their use.
western landscapes park in 1890). advocated creation of
helped to push forest reserves and a
Congress to federal forest service
preserve such to protect federal lands
western icons from exploitation. 

Believed in scientific Believed to preserve natural

management areas from human
interference.

Regulated use of natural The establishment of Arbor

resources. Forest Reserve Day in 1872, a day
Act of 1891 and the Forest dedicated to planting trees,
Management Act of 1897 and the educational efforts
of the Audubon Society and
the Sierra Club.

Presidents Benjamin John Muir, a leading

Harrison and Grover founder of the Sierra Club
Cleveland in 1892

They both involve some degree of protection towards the

environment.