The Frontier in American History | Page 2

THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE MISSISSIPPI VALLEY IN
AMERICAN HISTORY 177
VII THE PROBLEM OF THE WEST 205
VIII DOMINANT FORCES IN WESTERN LIFE 222
IX CONTRIBUTIONS OF THE WEST TO AMERICAN
DEMOCRACY 243
X PIONEER IDEALS AND THE STATE UNIVERSITY 269
XI THE WEST AND AMERICAN IDEALS 290
XII SOCIAL FORCES IN AMERICAN HISTORY 311
XIII MIDDLE WESTERN PIONEER DEMOCRACY 335
INDEX 361

I
THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE FRONTIER IN AMERICAN
HISTORY[1:1]
In a recent bulletin of the Superintendent of the Census for 1890 appear
these significant words: "Up to and including 1880 the country had a
frontier of settlement, but at present the unsettled area has been so
broken into by isolated bodies of settlement that there can hardly be
said to be a frontier line. In the discussion of its extent, its westward
movement, etc., it can not, therefore, any longer have a place in the
census reports." This brief official statement marks the closing of a
great historic movement. Up to our own day 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.

Behind institutions, behind constitutional forms and modifications, lie
the vital forces that call these organs into life and shape them to meet
changing conditions. The peculiarity of American institutions is, the
fact that they have been compelled to adapt themselves to the changes
of an expanding people--to the changes involved in crossing a continent,
in winning a wilderness, and in developing at each area of this progress
out of the primitive economic and political conditions of the frontier
into the complexity of city life. Said Calhoun in 1817, "We are great,
and rapidly--I was about to say fearfully--growing!"[2:1] So saying, he
touched the distinguishing feature of American life. All peoples show
development; the germ theory of politics has been sufficiently
emphasized. In the case of most nations, however, the development has
occurred in a limited area; and if the nation has expanded, it has met
other growing peoples whom it has conquered. But in the case of the
United States we have a different phenomenon. Limiting our attention
to the Atlantic coast, we have the familiar phenomenon of the evolution
of institutions in a limited area, such as the rise of representative
government; the differentiation of simple colonial governments into
complex organs; the progress from primitive industrial society, without
division of labor, up to manufacturing civilization. But we have in
addition to this a recurrence of the process of evolution in each western
area reached in the process of expansion. Thus American development
has exhibited not merely advance along a single line, but a return to
primitive conditions on a continually advancing frontier line, and a new
development for that area. American social development has been
continually beginning over again on the frontier. This perennial rebirth,
this fluidity of American life, this expansion westward with its new
opportunities, its continuous touch with the simplicity of primitive
society, furnish the forces dominating American character. The true
point of view in the history of this nation is not the Atlantic coast, it is
the Great West. Even the slavery struggle, which is made so exclusive
an object of attention by writers like Professor von Holst, occupies its
important place in American history because of its relation to westward
expansion.
In this advance, the frontier is the outer edge of the wave--the meeting
point between savagery and civilization. Much has been written about

the frontier from the point of view of border warfare and the chase, but
as a field for the serious study of the economist and the historian it has
been neglected.
The American frontier is sharply distinguished from the European
frontier--a fortified boundary line running through dense populations.
The most significant thing about the American frontier is, that it lies at
the hither edge of free land. In the census reports it is treated as the
margin of that settlement which has a density of two or more to the
square mile. The term is an elastic one, and for our purposes does not
need sharp definition. We shall consider the whole frontier belt,
including the Indian country and the outer margin of the "settled area"
of the census reports. This paper will make no attempt to treat the
subject exhaustively; its aim is simply to call attention to the frontier as
a fertile field for investigation, and to suggest some of the problems
which arise in connection with it.
In the settlement of America we have to observe how European life
entered the continent, and how America modified and developed that
life and reacted on Europe. Our early history is the study of European
germs