Biology Igcse

American frontier
The term frontier has been defined in various ways. Webster’s

International Dictionary, in 1890, described it as “that part of a country
which fronts or faces another country or an unsettled region;…extreme
part of a country.” In the 19th century it was statistically classified as an
area having no fewer than two but no more than six European
inhabitants per square mile (fewer than one to just over two Europeans
per square kilometre). The United States Census Bureau defined areas
with lower population densities as “unsettled” and on this basis marked
the frontier line on a series of maps for each decade. Thus, areas on the
frontier were no longer the exclusive domain of explorers, missionaries,
and trappers, but settled homesteads were relatively rare and widely
dispersed.
The historian Frederick Jackson Turner noted that, “especially in the

United States,” the term referred to that “belt of territory sparsely
occupied by Indian traders, hunters, miners, ranchmen, backwoodsmen
and adventurers of all sorts” which formed “the temporary boundary of
an expanding society at the edge of substantially free lands.” Others have
thought of it as “a form of society,” “a state of mind,” “the edge of the
unused,” “the first stage in the process of transforming the simplicity of
the wilderness into modern social complexity.” Some have used the
terms frontier and West interchangeably as referring to an area having
geographical location only in relation to a particular period of time and
changing constantly as population had advanced.
Amid the uncertainty in the use of terms, there remains the simple fact
that the history of the United States, up to the beginning of the 20th
century, was that of a people moving steadily toward the occupation of a
vast continent. This involved not only recurring physical advances into
new geographic basins where life had to be lived on simple elemental
levels for a time but also constant social evolution from a simple hunting-
trading stage to varying degrees of urban complexity and
interdependence.
For three centuries, some Americans were leaving the older settlements
and beginning over again on the frontier. For the same length of time,
those who lived in what had become old and established centres were
conscious of the fact that there remained an open door to lands that were
ostensibly unclaimed, where place and fortune were yet to be won. As a
reality for some and as a symbol for others, the frontier became a vital
factor in shaping American life and American character.
The first frontier
Thus understood, the American colonies along the Atlantic coast were
Europe’s frontier, and their gradual drift away from European patterns
was the first manifestation of frontier influence. They began the conquest
of the wilderness; they took the first steps in crossing the continent; they
became Americans. This, however, was only the beginning. Scarcely had
the colonies themselves become firmly established before
the western push began anew. Out from old centres, the dissatisfied, the
restless, the adventurous made their way into the backcountry. There
they encountered long-established Native American populations,
sometimes coexisting with them, sometimes forcing them into open
resistance but ultimate retreat. Sometimes they moved to secure more
room for themselves and their cattle; sometimes, as John
Winthrop described it, they simply possessed a “strong bent of their
spirits to remove thither.”
Proclamation of 1763: boundary line

The 13 American colonies in 1775, with the Proclamation of 1763 boundary line.
Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.
American frontier
A proclamation issued by Pennsylvania Gov. John Penn, who was attempting to ease
tension between whites and Native Americans on the Ohio frontier, 1763.
Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.
Well before the American Revolution they had brought a new west into
being: in upper New England, in the Mohawk River valley, in the great
valley of Pennsylvania and above the fall line and out into the ridges and
valleys of the south. In spite of the limitations placed on expansion by
the Proclamation of 1763, already a few settlers had crossed the
mountains and opened the way for an even greater west. With the Peace
of Paris (1783), Britain ceded the lands east of the Mississippi to the
newly independent United States, but it maintained a system of strategic
forts throughout the region.

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American frontier

The term frontier has been defined in various ways. Webster’s

The historian Frederick Jackson Turner noted that, “especially in the

Proclamation of 1763: boundary line

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