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Summary Of Westward Expansion

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Westward expansion and the settlers' experience on the frontier played a crucial role in shaping the nation’s character, along with bringing up traits like individualism, democracy, and a distinctive American identity. The frontier was overall, at the time in the 1800’s, mainly a rough, very demanding environment where only the Native Americans knew how to navigate the land. Since the west was just acquired land, it basically had no laws and this resulted in disputes to be settled with violence. These challenges, in-turn, forced pioneers and settlers to be self-reliant, and to only rely on themselves and their own skills in this harsh environment. Frederick Jackson Turner essay, “The Significance of the Frontier in American History”, 1893, perfectly demonstrates how the frontier helped shape the …show more content…
As I mentioned before, when the United States first had gotten the land it was essentially a ‘lawless’ land where violence was common, so the Americans who settled there began to form their own governments. To support my point further, the Federick Turner essay that I mentioned earlier, claims that “The frontier promoted democracy by releasing Americans from European mindsets and customs, by introducing new democratic institutions, and by motivating individual initiative.” This quote highlights the belief that the frontier promoted democracy by moving away from European traditions and introducing new democratic governments. While the quote offers valuable information, it only provides a biased perspective on the frontier, as it fails to mention the power structures that may have influenced the making of the democratic governments of the time. Finally, the settlers who lived on the frontier helped create a unique American identity by embodying qualities like self-reliance, individualism, and a pioneering

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