Historical Circumstances of the Frontier Myth - Assignment Example

Prior to the aspiration of America to become an imperialist country for the fulfillment of its imagined responsibility to impart to the uncivilized world the path towards enlightenment and progress, a myth already existed to define the boundaries between the opportune and the ill-fated. The frontier myth symbolized the elements of opportunity, possibility and optimism. This myth promoted the idea of America as the land of the free or the “promised land” wherein people could settle harmoniously and prosperously. In definite terms, the concept of frontier denotes a zone of uninhabited territory external to the lands settled on by the original dwellers of a particular region. The frontier is a dividing line between the unsettled regions and the settled lands in which there are myriads of opportunities and abundant natural resources. Moreover, the frontier myth stipulates that there are two dissimilar “west”, the real and the unreal. The former kind is characterized by individuals such as cowboys, peasants, ranchers, miners, sex slaves and wrongdoers who unrestrainedly pursued happiness. Later generations portrayed the real West as an ideal place to live in even though the landscape is quite arid and desolate. One of the brilliant writers the literary world has ever known, Mark Twain, created an account which vibrantly illustrates the West as a place where priceless minerals like gold germinate in a bountiful degree (Grenville p. 248). The frontier myth has its economic, political and social origins specifically in the United States. The very fact that its account is labeled as a myth, it indicates that its optimism towards human improvement can be debunked through examining its effects on the immigrants. The promises of the frontier myth have positively influenced the mindset of some Americans; yet, the myth has also its antithesis. The negative impact of the frontier myth is evidently mirrored in by the experiences of the immigrants in the “promised land”. There are a number of immigrants who were unable to cope with the environment and the culture of the New World which made them vulnerable to depression and mental illness. These immigrants are actually individuals who are seeking for a greener pasture but then yearned to go back to their beloved hometown because of hardships brought about by the realities of their economic, social and political circumstances. Primarily, in order to fully grasp the relevance of the frontier myth to the contemporary period, it is significant to revisit the origin of the subject matter. In 1844, an American president named James K. Polk was elected to the position because of his advocacy towards diplomacy and war in resolving conflicts over territorial disputes. He also supported the idea that American territories should expand in all directions hence contributing to the emergence of imperialistic objectives. One year later the election of Polk to the presidency, John O’Sullivan baptized the concept “manifest destiny” to back up the claim of Polk on the exigency to enlarge territorially. Manifest destiny is the doctrine that states that the superior Anglo race has the liability to propagate civilization to non-white people through the process of colonization (Eubanks 1998). Furthermore, Frederick Jackson Turner (1920) delineated the difference between the frontiers of the two Anglo races, the Americans and the Europeans. He maintained that the American frontier is a heavily buttressed boundary line which traverses territories of congested population. On the contrary, the frontier of the Europeans seems to be feebly fortified which can be concluded from the subsequent migration that occurred from the Old World to the New World. The European settlement of the Americans was a pivotal incident in western history because it ushered in cultural modifications on both sides of the continents. Europeans carried over their traditions and societal structure to America and as a response to the initial subtle expansion movement of the powerful European nations, America inadvertently altered their social systems to cope with the dynamism of colonization. The ancient history of America commenced on the period in which European germs touched the fertile soil of the Old World. The materialization of the frontier is the fundamental cause of the drastic and successful phenomenon of Americanization. The attempt of the Europeans to master the craft of territorial expansion resulted in the enormous changes in their material and intangible realities. Turner averred that America’s historical, cultural, social and political institutions were largely influenced not by British legacy but the extraordinary environment of North America. The experience of America with the frontier was the decisive factor in the establishment of its distinctive culture and political edifices. For Turner, the development of American as a powerful unified nation was due to availability of communal land, its massive peopling experience and the eventual realization of the inhabitants of America of the importance of expanding westward for stronger fortification. Turner brilliantly envisioned a westward movement of people to the frontier which resulted in the removal of the boundary between civilization and the formidable savagery of nature. The nomadic settlers then were confronted by the harsh forces innate in the natural environment. In order to subsist in a hostile surrounding without any viable social framework to work into, the settlers were compelled to relapse to the primitive culture or the savage lifestyle. Instead of social evolution, the North American dwellers underwent devolution. Nonetheless, human creativity and ingenuity won over the unrelenting natural strains. Instead of completely surrendering to the omnipotence of the natural environment, the settlers devised stunning methodologies to tame the wilderness. They cleared the forests and fields to make the soil fertile and they erected towns where commerce will buzz incessantly thus the surfacing of a new civilization. The human values that developed because of the frontier environment are varied in its manifestations. In the frontier setting, individuals tend to lean on individualism, quick-wittedness, autonomy and democracy. The entity that emerged out of the challenges posed by the frontier predicament was not the abandoned civilization but the newly-fangled American who totally enshrined the values aforementioned. These new American way became the foundation of America’s national character and self-governing institutions (Furniss para 3-5). The frontier then is conclusively the bringer of the great American imperialistic character. Nevertheless, the frontier did not acquire further extension because in the 1890s the frontier was officially proclaimed closed and non-functional. Following the fateful closure of the frontier which then prohibited the acquisition of free land without permit from authorities, prompted the non-indigenous settlements began to disperse to all the territorial holdings of the nation. The cultural and political values that developed out of the frontier environment were suddenly confronted by the hazard of restrictions in obtaining natural resources that were previously unrestricted. The aftermath of the frontier closure contributed to the birth of industrialization and consolidation of wealth and power to the hands of the few. Individuals who had simple occupations in the frontier period became impoverished and dependent to the whims of colossal corporations and other enterprises (para 6-7). Conversely, the frontier myth had been able to remove the attention of many historians and thinkers from the negative impacts of the frontier environment. In the book Giants in the Earth by Rölvaag, the downbeat effects of the frontier to the immigrants who were searching for a better life were highlighted. The story movingly depicted the failure of the success in America to recompense the loss of the native soil. People who moved to America presumed a better prospect for growth but unfortunately the reverse of their expectations occurred. Sentiments of seclusion, displacement and alienation became integrated to the lives of the millions of immigrants who settled in the United States in the nineteenth century. The author of the book profoundly emphasized on the sacredness of one’s tradition. The resistance of some of the immigrants against the process of Americanization stressed on the attempt of these people to preserve their cultural heritage in a land miles away from their home. Yet, there were still a number of immigrants who were optimistic towards the fulfillment of their goals in the American nation (Rölvaag 1927). The power of attraction that the concept of the “promise land” brings forth is still evident in the postmodern day in which people from all over the globe, especially those from developing countries accept with eyes wide open. Decades after the closure of the frontier, America’s ideas of evolution and power became anchored on the efficacy of scientific innovations such as the automobile, the information technology, the nuclear power, the microchip and most significantly the internet. These advanced technologies linked the regions of the world in the most efficient and responsive manner thus contributing to the emergence of the “global village”. The American nation was the front liner in the globalization of human activities ranging from the tangible ones such as economic undertakings to the abstract such as the social institutions. This move towards expanding the nonexistent frontier has its motives, namely, the yearning to challenge the political authority of Europe, to fabricate a reinforced domestic profitable networks and most essentially, to establish flourishing markets in the nations of the Asian tigers such as China and Japan. In the present-day, the frontier myth stands as the language of the founders of the frontier history whom stressed on the relevance of designing a far-reaching transportation and communication technologies. To put it logically, the frontier myth is nothing but a part of the system that created and sustained the groundwork of a capitalist world system (Eubanks 1998). Western history and culture have been embarking upon the production of ideas that could marshal in power moves hence the insistence on thrusting the frontiers outward. As civilizations migrated to the “promise land”, they clothed themselves on a distinctly alien cultural wardrobe while simultaneously thriving to preserve the original core. America was completely westernized by the immense migration process whereas the West was Americanized by America’s expansionist objectives. Works Cited Eubanks, Virginia. "The Mythography of the "new" Frontier." MIT Communication Forum (1998). Grenville, J.A.S. A History of the World in the 20th Century. Cambridge, Massachusetts: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2000. Rolvaag, Ole Edvart. Giants in the Earth . New York: Harper and Brothers, 1927. Turner, Frederick Jackson. The Frontier in American History. New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1920. Online Source Furniss, Elizabeth. Imagining the Frontier. viewed 12 July 2008. http://www.colorado.edu/AmStudies/lewis/west/imaginefrontier.pdf Read More