The Turner Thesis

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The American Frontier contains the geography, history, folklore, and cultural expression of life in the forward influx of American development that started with English colonial settlements in the early 1800s. The American Frontier focuses mainly on the westward expansion in the 19th century. The American Frontier was effective in producing economic and technologic growth; on the other hand, the American Frontier was detrimental due to the fact that Native Americans and European immigrants were forced to adapt to the American lifestyle. As shown in these sources, discrimination of European and Native Americans during this period were detrimental to society as a whole. The Americans took over Native American land, persuaded them to sign treaties, and used violence to take over tribes. Most commonly, the …show more content…
The moral of The Turner Thesis is to depict how the American Frontier caused the assimilation of Europeans. Turner had a positive outlook on the assimilation of the Europeans, in which it lead to American individualism. On the other hand, The Ghost Dance Ballad depicts how the American Frontier caused violence and assimilation of the Native Americans, which ultimately lead to a negative outlook on the American Frontier. The two sources are similar in the fact that the assimilation of the Native Americans and Europeans lead to American Individualism. In the Turner Thesis the white men were viewed as strong, and in the Ghost Dance Ballad the army was viewed as in control. The Turner Thesis is more reliable due to the fact that Turner was most likely educated; whereas, the author of the Ghost Dance Ballad was probably not. In addition, the author of the Ghost Dance Ballad viewed the American Frontier negatively because he was apart of the violence. As mentioned above, the Turner Thesis could make the opposite argument that the American Frontier was beneficial due to the author’s
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