Effects Of The American Frontier Essay Research

Effects Of The American Frontier Essay, Research Paper

The North American frontier contributed greatly to today’s

American culture. For nearly 150 years before independence, the

Appalachian mountain range had been the American frontier, separating

civilization from wilderness. When North America gained independence

and became the United States, however, people began to move more

freely across the frontiers, into the unknown. The land belonged to

them now, and they were free to explore it however deeply they chose

claiming at will what land they saw. One can explain American

development as the existence of a large area of free land constantly

receding, and American settlement advancing westward. The difference

in American institutions from those of any other nation is that

American institutions have a way of adapting themselves to the

growing, changing nation for which they were imposed. In addition,

American development has shown itself to be not only an advance along

a single frontier, but a cycle of returning to primitive conditions

along a constantly moving frontier line, then settling and civilizing

those areas. The American frontier is also unlike that of any other

country in that most other countries have developed in a limited area

of which they knew the boundaries, meeting and conquering other

developing nations around them. But in the case of North America, the

frontier was where savagery and civilization met, and nobody knew what

lay beyond it. The settlers of North America had no idea that the

continent they had begun settling was so enormously vast; they simply

took nature as it came. The pioneers’ necessity to cope with natural

barriers and survive in near anarchy, in essence being

self-sufficient, has greatly affected the American culture of

today.

One of the areas affected by the frontier experience was

politics. People on the frontier had to deal with whatever life

brought them and make the best of it. They learned how to be very

individualized, pushing their way through whatever barriers nature

presented. This individuality has led Americans to develop a

government that facilitates individualism. We, the Americans, are

usually suspicious, untrusting, and paranoid of the government because

we like to be independent, individually solving whatever problems

arise in our path to the goal. This mentality is shown in the nation’s

protests to the government’s increasing tyranny and intervention in

our personal lives; however, a changing, growing nation requires

changes in government. We believe in individualism, and we apply this

belief to all aspects of our lives. In the so-called “Wild West”,

government does not pay as close attention to people’s actions, and

this was where the vast majority of the nation’s reforms we know today

originated. For example, initiative, the right of the citizens to

initiate a new law into the legislature; referendum, the citizens’

right to directly vote a law into action instead of passing it through

the legislature; recall, the citizens’ to vote a corrupt legislator

out of office by way of petition; and term limits were all reforms

born in the West. The reason for the government’s low involvement in

Westerners’ daily lives is that for centuries, even to this day, many

parts of the West have still been developing their society,

civilization, and state governments. In the East, where we have always

been on the civilized side of the frontier, people tend more to accept

the government’s rules, mentally coming to the conclusion that there

is nothing they can do about it. But in the West new ideas for reform

are constantly being born. Of course, there must be a compromise

between a totalitarian government and complete anarchy; too much

government restricts freedom while too little government does not

provide the convenient government services we may take for granted,

and allows society to get far too out of hand.

The United States of America is a diverse but tolerant social

mixing pot. Unlike most other nations, America is a safe haven for

many, many races and religions. People of a particular race or ethnic

group usually live in clusters, minimally interfering with outsiders;

taking this into mind, however, many immigrants are still amazed by