Frontier may be defined as a line, a belt, an area or even a state of mind. However, in popular perception, frontier is considered a line that divides two countries and demarcates their boundaries. Throughout history, boundaries of any country never remained static but changed from time to time; and as a result of it countries either shrank or expanded in size. Hunger of land motivated the powerful countries to wage war against weak and   usurp and occupy its land. Wars, therefore, were fought for land and people were sacrificed in the name of religion or patriotism to fulfill the ambitions of aggressive states and nations.

In the history of United States, the definition of frontier is different than the classical one According to the earlier American concept; the frontier divided their country into settled and unsettled areas. In this phase of their history, what was beyond their settled areas was empty, barren, and un-inhabited, and, therefore, justifiable to be occupied by the newcomer white settlers. Those Indian tribes who were living in these areas were not regarded as permanent settlers but nomads and pastorals that had no cities and urban centers. Therefore, they called the occupation of land as the conflict between settlement and wilderness. The European settlers regarded themselves civilized while the Indian, the native inhabitants, as savages.

The westward movement in the history of America projects the image of these frontiersmen who pushed the frontier and established their settlements as heroes and explorers. This romanticisation of the west is indicated in the literature, films and music. The Wild West became a symbol of romance and imaginative speculations that persisted from generations to generation of American nation. However, on the other hand, the image of the Indians is that they were cruel, bloodthirsty and villain. The binary division between good and evil justified the civilized whites to use all methods against the evil Indians and wipe them out from the wilderness in the name of civilization.

An American historian Fredrick Jackson Turner wrote an article on the: Significance of the Frontier in American History”, which not only gave a new interpretation to the changing frontiers in the ongoing history of America but created a debates among the historians on his analysis of this aspect of the American history. According to him the expanding frontier was a process of progress of civilization. The frontiersmen were not only expansionists but also nationalists. They were the people who faced natural challenges as well as the threats of the native Indians and responded forcefully and effectively to them for their survival. As there was no hierarchical society, equality was the characteristic of their lifestyle. In this sense true democracy was the product of the west. Another important phenomenon of the frontiersmen was their individualism and personal freedom. As there was no strong control of the state, the individual developed a strong character to have confidence in him rather than to depend on state support and protection.

He also points out the impact of the expanding frontier on the rest of the country. On the basis of his analysis, the West absorbed the excessive population that enabled the East to maintain high standard of life and economic prosperity. The West also integrated the dissenters and opponents of the system that allowed the state to implement its policies without any controversy and facing any trouble. He concludes that the overall result of the Westward movement was that the East economically acquired stability and politically it remained calm.

What is missing in Turner’s article is the fate of the native Indians. What happened to them? Was the process of expansion of frontier peaceful? The impression which the article and other history textbooks give is that there wee no settlement, the land was un-used and without any claim. Historically, it is not true. There were the Indian tribes who were settled and engaged in cultivation. As a result of coming of the frontiermen, their settlements were uprooted and their population was either massacred or pushed ahead, The Indians were not passive. They resisted and fought bravely to save their culture and land but failed because of superior technology of the whites. After a battle with the Indian tribe known as the Black Hawk, an American soldier observed that: “It was a horrid sight to witness little children, wounded and suffering the most excruciating pain, although they were of the savage enemy.” It is interesting that in the history books they were the Indians who were threat to the whites and not those whites that killed them, wiped out their villages, destroyed the game on which the Indian depended, and burned their fields. In spite of this, the Indians were the aggressors and the whites were the defenders. Andrew Jackson, the future President of USA earned his reputation in the west as a fighter against the Indians and their destroyer. It is from the West that the famous saying became popular that the “ good Indian is the dead Indian. “Abraham Lincoln also served as a captain in the army that fought the Indians So, the killers and murderers of the Indians became the heroes of the white America. That was the gift of the western wilderness to the American history.

A stage came when the expansion of the frontier came to an end. The wilderness had transformed into a zone of civilization. After it, the question was: What next? In response of it, some say that the energy of the American people should be spent in making the country more powerful in economic and political terms. Some say that the whole concept of the frontier should be changed. In a word of a historian Robert E. Riegel, “Turner himself went a step further and began to look for new frontiers, as in the arts, sciences, and politics, that might replace the old economic outlet of free land.”

Turner, in the end of his article, points out that: “ What is needed is the multiplication of motives for ambition and the opening new lines of achievement for the strongest.”

That is how the Americans, after exhausting the resources of exploiting in their own land, turned to the Old World and opened the new extra-territorial frontiers to dominate culturally, economically and politically.