Westward Expansion and Frontier Society in 19th Century America

FROM CHIEF TECUMSEH, ADDRESS TO GENERAL WILLIAM HENRY HARRISON (1810)

During the nineteenth Century, there was increasing expansion west.

The American Frontier

The West was characterized by Jefferson’s grid systems.

The demographic character of the frontier society was that it was made up of all classes from all regions and of all ethnic groups. What they had in common was that they were all young.

Migration Patterns

• Northern farmers moved first to Vermont and western areas of New York, then into the Upper Northwest Territory to the border of the Great Plains.
• Southern planters migrated to Kentucky and Tennessee, which for them was the new land of milk and honey.

The migration has been described as a bit-by-bit process and not some great wave.

Usually, frontiersmen would settle near family who had preceded them on lands similar to those they had left. They would sell to the best buyer and move on to stake a claim to their next house, then sell again.

Land Acquisition and Speculation

The division of public lands through auctions favored speculators and brokers who would buy large sections of land in order to resell it to the settlers. There were also independent farms throughout the Mississippi Valley, but the first settlers would usually get the best lands, consolidate their holdings, and then sell at top prices. This kind of speculation in real estate would become very intense at different times. Investment of this kind meant that money was not invested in commerce and industry. This was particularly the case in the Southern States.

Ideals and Conflicts

Materialism was beginning to prevail in America, but in spite of this, the notion of the frontier as a place of anti-materialism persisted. The anti-materialistic purpose of the American West continued to be emphasized.

A kind of missionary impulse led to renewed support of the Protestant religion.

Part of America’s Manifest Destiny was related to a fear of disorder and irrationality. The idea was to dominate the uninhabited area.

There were those who would not agree, in particular, the Native Americans. The mythical values of the Native Americans were opposed by the orderly imagination of the white men. This led to what is called geographical exclusion. The first victims of this geographical exclusion were the Native American tribes living to the west.

In the Northwest Territories, British agents held illegal colonies.