The American Frontier

January 20, 1986

Copyright © 1997 Property of Deborah K. Fletcher. All rights reserved.

There have been five great frontiers in the history of America. Each time, it has been man's need to know the unknown and do the undone which has cast him from the security of his home to a place which neither he nor his brethren yet know. The first of the great frontiers was opened in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries. It stretched from the Atlantic coast to the foot of the Appalacian Range. The second of these frontiers was opened in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries. This frontier spanned the wilderness from Appalacia to the great Mississippi River. The third frontier stretched from the Mississippi to the majestic shores of the Pacific Ocean in California. This frontier was opened in the mid-Nineteenth Century. The fourth frontier was opened from the mid-Nineteenth Century until just before the dawning of the Twentieth Century. This frontier was the Plains. The fifth frontier opened in the mid-Twentieth Century, and is yet in the early stages of exploration. This is the frontier beyond the Earth - the frontier of space. However, it is the fourth frontier that we are interested in at present.

The Frontier, as the plains are affectionately referred to, even now, began to be opened when President Thomas Jefferson purchased the Louisiana Territory from France. This huge tract of land was explored by the survey team of Lewis and Clarke. They, and the pioneers who followed, invoked Manifest Destiny as their authority to claim the western lands. This all-purpose excuse said that only white Americans were suited to control the continent - and they were determined to control it, from sea to shining sea.

With the opening of new lands came the beginning of the prairie homesteader. Early in this period, families or groups of families would travel by covered wago from the "civilized" East. They would go to a country without towns, where a man and his family could build a farm almost anywhere his wished.

It was not easy to build a farm, though. Trees were scarce on the plains and prairies. The few which did grow were small, and unsuitable for building. With this lack of traditional building supplies, men were forced to use their ingenuity. This led to the building of houses and barns from sod bricks, cut from the living Earth. It also led to building dugout houses in the banks of rivers. Both sod houses and dugouts were practical for the frontier, both because the materials for them were readily available, and because their well-insulated warmth was excellent protection from prairie blizzards.

The land of the plains was rich, fertile, and open. This made it very popular for homesteaders and farmers. It was so popular, in fact, that when Oklahoma Territory was opened for settlement, all land was claimed in a period of two hours.

The Indians were already in residence when white men decided to claim the West. The tribes had their territories, laws, customs, and freedom. They would have had sovereign rights to the land, as well, except that white men regarded them as heathens, or at least as less-than-human.

The American Indian got a raw deal from the white man. He was given treaties which were honoured only when it was convenient for the whites. He was removed from the land of his fathers and placed on reservations. He was slaughtered by glory-seeking military men who felt that the only good Indian was a dead Indian.

Each time the United States gained a new territory, they also gained a new group of Indians. Hundreds of thousands of resident Indians were slaughtered, starved, or confined to reservations.

The American Negro, newly freed from bondage, was a common homesteader or cowboy on the American Frontier. Little is said of these courageous men, who fought the odds and won, surviving in a brutal land among Whites. In fact, almost nothing is known of them. It is known, however, that many freed slaves left the South to settle in the freedom of the West.

The first cowboys of the American frontier were Mexican vaqueros. In the late 1860's, as the pioneers discovered the great amount of open land on the plains, cattle ranching became a widespread occupation. The men of the West took to their horses, and followed the example of the vaqueros, by riding with the herds as they roamed the ranges.

Cowboys were not the god-like men that they were portrayed as. They were rugged, resourceful men who had seen the dark side of life, and had interwoven it with their own lives. They were usually fond of liquor, and the women they knew were rarely innocent damsels in need of aid.

The woman of the frontier was a sturdy woman who bore as much of the labours of the homestead as her man did. The work of the woman was long, as were her days. One of her main duties was to produce children to work the land, and many of her other duties stemmed from it.

The frontier woman produced the family's food and clothing, from growing or raising it, to feeding it to or putting it on them. She was teacher and nurse for her children, and often for the children of neighbouring families when the en and other women shared the work of the homesteads.

Women were not worshipped, nor were they even given the respect which women of a later age received. Even the sanctity of the body was not then in evidence, and bastardy was not uncommon.

The emergence of mercantilism on the frontier was an inevitable result of homesteading. Merchants were very important, and came in various types. The itinerant merchant was the forebearer of the modern travelling salesman. He travelled from town to town and from homestead to homestead.

Merchants who settled in the frontier tended to settle at popular crossroads. As pioneers moved West, some would stop at the crossroads stores. Eventually, towns would come into being.

The outlaws of the frontier are among the most glamourous men in history. They were not always so, however. When the layers of legends are removed, these outlaws are no better than any others - and many are much worse.

The law of the West was the sixshooter - if it had its six bullets, and if the wearer knew how to use it, the law was on the side of the man (or woman) who had the hardware.

The frontier was a difficult place to live. The men and women who peopled it were sturdy and enterprising. Their success at taming the West has made possible much of that which we know now.

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