Frontier

:This article is about the Frontier term. For the computer game, see Frontier (computer game). For the games developer see Frontier Developments.

The U.S. frontier

Following the victory of the United States in the American Revolutionary War and the signing Treaty of Paris in 1783, the United States gained formal, if not actual, control of the British lands west of the Appalachians. The prohibition against settlement was rendered moot and the lands of the Ohio Country and in western Virginia (present-day West Virginia and Kentucky) were immediately available for new settlement. Some areas, such as the Virginia Military District and the Connecticut Western Reserve in the Ohio Country, were used by the states as rewards to veterans of the war. The issue of how to formally include these new frontier areas into the nation was a important issue in the early Congresses and was essentially resolved by the Northwest Ordinance (1787).

Related Topics:
United States - American Revolutionary War - Treaty of Paris - 1783 - Virginia - West Virginia - Kentucky - Virginia Military District - Connecticut Western Reserve - Congresses - Northwest Ordinance - 1787

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For the next century, the expansion of the nation into these areas, as well as the subsequently acquired Louisiana Purchase, Oregon Country, and Mexican Cession, would absorb much of the energy of the nation and largely define its politics and character, in particular in its relations with Native Americans. The question of whether the American frontier would become "slave" or "free" was a spark of the American Civil War.

Related Topics:
Louisiana Purchase - Oregon Country - Mexican Cession - American Civil War

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In the 19th century, the settlement of the wild west became progressively organized through acts of the federal government, most notably the Homestead Act. At the ed of the 1890s, the frontier was officially declared closed. Eventually, the frontier by official definition of the census was a line west of which the population was less than 2 persons per section (one square mile). The frontier was very productive of both adventures and stories. Western movies are generally set on the frontier.

Related Topics:
19th century - Wild west - Homestead Act - 1890s - Census - Section - Square mile - Western movies

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The American frontier was generally the most Western edge of settlement and typically more democratic and free-spirited in nature than the East because of its lack of social and political institutions. The idea that the frontier provided the core defining quality of the United States was elaborated by the great historian Frederick Jackson Turner, who built his Frontier Thesis in 1893 around this notion.

Related Topics:
Frederick Jackson Turner - Frontier Thesis - 1893

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Recently Drs. Frank and Deborah Popper, originators of the Buffalo Commons proposal, have pointed out that several hundred counties of the American West still have less than 6 persons per square mile - the density standard Turner used to declare the Frontier "closed". Many have less than 2 persons per square mile.

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