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Frontier Myth In American Culture

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When we think of the American West, we always envision a land of rugged mountains and vast prairie, on which cowboys ride on horseback and chase after the Indians. This is the definition of the American West as presented on big screens in cinema, where most Americans’ perception of the myth of the American West comes from. Myth is a story that represents a culture's values and helps to define the individuals that comprise it. All cultures are based on myths. Perhaps the most significant myth in American culture is that of the American frontier generated by the European encounters with the American West. The most noticeable part of the frontier myth is the mythic struggle between modern civilization and wilderness. Frontier is defined as “the meeting point between savagery and civilization”. Turner believes that the American frontier is closely related to American civilization and that frontier …show more content…

A view of Americans as a special, exceptional people because Americans had progressively taken over the West and conquered primitive societies was firmly established in the minds of Americans by frontier myth. One of problems is that the frontier myth is a story, and “all stories are partial; that is, in creating narrative coherence, they leave things out, and emphasize other things”. They are not necessarily false, but neither are they history. As the society evolved, the concept of the frontier is consequently redefined as a space of social and cultural interaction and replaced by the terms “contact zone” by Mary Louise Pratt in her 1992 book Imperial Eyes. Contact zones are “social spaces where disparate cultures meet, clash, and grapple with each other.” Of course there could be winners and losers, and violent battles in these encounters, however the focus is no longer on distinctions between race and gender but on the intersections between people and cultures, on their assimilations and

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In 1893 Frederic Jackson Turner a historian, introduces the “Frontier Thesis” in Columbian Exposition, he explains from this thesis about the importance of American history. Frontier thesis remarks the end of a great historic society. Because Frederic Jackson argues that continuous western settlement had an extraordinary impact on American social, political and economic development throughout 20th

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1184 Words | 5 Pages

Facing East from Indian Country by Daniel Richter is--without question--one of the most effective studies of Native American history. Richter’s previous book, The Ordeal of the Longhouse, which viewed the European invasion of northeastern America from the perspective of the Iroquois peoples of modern New York a similar awareness of early American history. Facing East challenges the instilled perspective of westward expansion from the early sixteenth century well into the nineteenth. By viewing the early European-Indian encounter through the eyes of the Native Americans, this revolutionary examination intends to “turn familiar tales inside out, to show how old documents might be read in fresh ways...and to outline stories of North America”

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After reading Native Americans and the “Middle Ground,” I realized how narratives of historians are quick to shame and blame Native Americans in history. This article begins by revealing how European settlement presented the Indians as obstacles. Recent historians, such as Gary Nash, show the Native Americans as being conquered by the Europeans. Author of The Middle Ground, Richard White, seems to be one of the first to examine the culture of Native Americans and the relationship between colonists. White writes about the “middle ground” of the politics and trade that is eventually established.

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Anybody interested in the history of the American West or the labor movement will find this to be an intriguing and enjoyable read due to Kelton's portrayal of the cowboys as hardworking men and his in-depth descriptions of the surroundings on the

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409 Words | 2 Pages

Program 5 describes the impact Cooper, Ridge, and Whitman made on America through their writing. Cooper, Ridge, and Whitman are well known for their portrayal of the developing America and what became known as the “western hero”. Cooper was the first to create the character of the western hero. His hero was characterized as a strong man who, unintentionally, led the expansion west through his desire to separate himself from the civilized world. Along the way, this man became best friends with a Native American because he could recognize the same manliness in this man as he saw in himself.

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754 Words | 4 Pages

The National Park Service was created in 1961 to preserve the natural and cultural aspects of the National Park System. As the way Americans perceived wilderness evolved, the history of the national parks arguably became inaccurate. In Dispossessing the Wilderness, Mark Spence writes about how the Antebellum Era effected the way Americans viewed and defined wilderness, how the redefining of wilderness led to the dispossession of Indians, and how these actions came to change the historical reality of national parks. During the Antebellum Era, the West was frequently thought of as the “Indian Wilderness” as it was uncommon during this era to separate the idea of the wilderness and those who inhabit it. While American Romanticism had quite an

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939 Words | 4 Pages

The topic of focus for my paper was the Long Walk of the Navajo and Navajo Wars during the Civil War period until 1868, as that period is remembered by the Navajo. I believe that a greater understanding of the history of the American Soutwest can be reached taking Navajoes’ memories and perspectives of these events into account. The Long Walk of the Navajo was migration of the tribe to a reservations across the Southwest, most prominently Bosque Redondo, wherein they suffered from a variety of degradations from violence and raids to starvation. This process of migration occurred in waves, and was triggered by warfare and violence at the hands of the Navajo’s enemies, including the United States (or Union), New Mexican citizens, and other tribes

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1303 Words | 6 Pages

The definition of a myth is a story to explain nature, history and customs within a culture. Myths teach people how and why the world and things of the world are the way they are now. They teach us the origin of things and how they came to be. In class, we read a few myths from different groups of people about how we got fire, and in this essay two will be analyzed for similarities and differences: the Coyote Steals Fire Northwestern American myth and the Maui Steals Fire Polynesian myth. The Coyote myth is about a Coyote that felt bad for humans that were miserable— and even dying— in the freezing winter.

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784 Words | 4 Pages

During the “Gilded Age” period of American history, development of the Trans-Mississippi west was crucial to fulfilling the American dream of manifest destiny and creating an identity which was distinctly American. Since the west is often associated with rugged pioneers and frontiersmen, there is an overarching idea of hardy American individualism. However, although these settlers were brave and helped to make America into what it is today, they heavily relied on federal support. It would not have been possible for white Americans to settle the Trans-Mississippi west without the US government removing Native Americans from their lands and placing them on reservations, offering land grants and incentives for people to move out west, and the

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“ The first is that typical frontier community was sociologically cohesive- a kind of persistent Lockhean husking and barn-raising. The second misconception is that these particular frontier communities were reslentlessly homicidal” (pg 218). Frontier citizens worked together to obtain railroads, manage their cattle and access to cattle trails, defend themselves and families from outlaws gangs, but also they fought among themselves for cattle, for lands, for power and wealth. Which proves the contrast between Dykstra’s research and the western legends belief. Also the homicide rate in frontier compare to modern society is lower.

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1002 Words | 5 Pages

(pg. 686) As America expanded westward to pursue a “special ‘destiny’ to settle, develop, and dominate the entire continent,” they invaded the territory promised to Native Americans. (pg. 680, pg. 686) Promises made to Indians that they would keep and own their land in the West without worrying about trespassers were consistently broken by “buffalo hunters, miners, ranchers, farmers, railroad surveyors, and horse soldiers.”

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750 Words | 3 Pages

Once European men stepped foot onto what is now known as North America, the lives of the Native Americans were forever changed. The Indians suffered centuries of torment and ridicule from the settlers in America. Despite the reservations made for the Natives, there are still cultural issues occurring within America. In Sherman Alexie’s, The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven, the tragic lives of Native Americans in modern society are depicted in a collection of short stories taking place in the Spokane Reservation in Washington state. Throughout the collection, a prominent and reoccurring melancholic theme of racism against Native Americans and their struggle to cope with such behavior from their counterpart in this modern day and age is shown.

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632 Words | 3 Pages

1. History and myth is an important part of any culture. History is a study of events that have already occurred and is comprised of stories from first-hand experiences. Myth is connected to history as it speaks to the stories and ideas passed down over time that are not true but widely believed by people. This paper will link myth and history together concerning Mount McKinley, more recently named Mount Denali located in the Alaskan mountain range.

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809 Words | 4 Pages

Frederick Jackson Turner, an American historian, stresses the importance of the great western frontier and all of the developments it has made on American history. It’s through Turner’s main points of how the frontier shaped America, how expansion to the west frontier changed people's cultural views, and why America is what it is today that he shows the true value the frontier has in American history. The first major point Turner emphasizes on greatly is how America was shaped by the frontier. The only limits Americans had discovered that they could not overcome were the physical barriers that lie between them and their vision of expansion.

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1471 Words | 6 Pages

Another important aspect to the study of the mythic West and its function in America as an imagined community is that of a ‘shared history’, “elements of a past remembered in common as well as elements forgotten,” (Glassberg, Public History 11) as it makes the cultural ties and unity among the nation’s members stronger. David McCrone prefers the concept of “myth-history” instead of “shared history” to characterize a community’s history (51; 59), because the notion of ‘history’ is subjective and can easily be shaped by a community according to its interests and wishes. By using ‘myth-history’ instead, McCrone demonstrates that a nation’s history should not be interpreted as an factually account of its historical past but as a narrative told

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