The Frontier in American History pot

CHAPTER PAGEI THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE FRONTIER IN AMERICAN HISTORY 1 II THE FIRST OFFICIAL FRONTIER OF THE MASSACHUSETTS BAY 39 III THE OLD WEST 67 IV THE MIDDLE WEST 126 V THE OHIO VALL

CHAPTER PAGE

The Frontier in American History, by

Frederick Jackson Turner

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Title: The Frontier in American History

Author: Frederick Jackson Turner

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THE FRONTIER IN AMERICAN HISTORY

by

FREDERICK JACKSON TURNER

[Illustration]

New York Henry Holt and Company 1921

Copyright, 1920 by Frederick J Turner

TO CAROLINE M TURNER MY WIFE

Various essays dealing with the connection of diplomatic history and the frontier and others stressing thesignificance of the section, or geographic province, in American history, are not included in the presentcollection Neither the French nor the Spanish frontier is within the scope of the volume

The future alone can disclose how far these interpretations are correct for the age of colonization which camegradually to an end with the disappearance of the frontier and free land It alone can reveal how much of thecourageous, creative American spirit, and how large a part of the historic American ideals are to be carriedover into that new age which is replacing the era of free lands and of measurable isolation by consolidated andcomplex industrial development and by increasing resemblances and connections between the New World andthe Old

But the larger part of what has been distinctive and valuable in America's contribution to the history of thehuman spirit has been due to this nation's peculiar experience in extending its type of frontier into new

regions; and in creating peaceful societies with new ideals in the successive vast and differing geographic

provinces which together make up the United States Directly or indirectly these experiences shaped the life ofthe Eastern as well as the Western States, and even reacted upon the Old World and influenced the direction

of its thought and its progress This experience has been fundamental in the economic, political and socialcharacteristics of the American people and in their conceptions of their destiny

Writing at the close of 1796, the French minister to the United States, M Adet, reported to his governmentthat Jefferson could not be relied on to be devoted to French interests, and he added: "Jefferson, I say, isAmerican, and by that name, he cannot be sincerely our friend An American is the born enemy of all

European peoples." Obviously erroneous as are these words, there was an element of truth in them If wewould understand this element of truth, we must study the transforming influence of the American wilderness,remote from Europe, and by its resources and its free opportunities affording the conditions under which anew people, with new social and political types and ideals, could arise to play its own part in the world, and toinfluence Europe

FREDERICK J TURNER

HARVARD UNIVERSITY, March, 1920

CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGE

I THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE FRONTIER IN AMERICAN HISTORY 1

II THE FIRST OFFICIAL FRONTIER OF THE MASSACHUSETTS BAY 39

III THE OLD WEST 67

IV THE MIDDLE WEST 126

V THE OHIO VALLEY IN AMERICAN HISTORY 157

VI THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE MISSISSIPPI VALLEY IN AMERICAN HISTORY 177

VII THE PROBLEM OF THE WEST 205

VIII DOMINANT FORCES IN WESTERN LIFE 222

IX CONTRIBUTIONS OF THE WEST TO AMERICAN DEMOCRACY 243

X PIONEER IDEALS AND THE STATE UNIVERSITY 269

XI THE WEST AND AMERICAN IDEALS 290

XII SOCIAL FORCES IN AMERICAN HISTORY 311

XIII MIDDLE WESTERN PIONEER DEMOCRACY 335

INDEX 361

I

THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE FRONTIER IN AMERICAN HISTORY[1:1]

In a recent bulletin of the Superintendent of the Census for 1890 appear these significant words: "Up to andincluding 1880 the country had a frontier of settlement, but at present the unsettled area has been so brokeninto by isolated bodies of settlement that there can hardly be said to be a frontier line In the discussion of itsextent, its westward movement, etc., it can not, therefore, any longer have a place in the census reports." Thisbrief official statement marks the closing of a great historic movement Up to our own day American historyhas been in a large degree the history of the colonization of the Great West The existence of an area of freeland, its continuous recession, and the advance of American settlement westward, explain American

development

Behind institutions, behind constitutional forms and modifications, lie the vital forces that call these organsinto life and shape them to meet changing conditions The peculiarity of American institutions is, the fact thatthey have been compelled to adapt themselves to the changes of an expanding people to the changes involved

in crossing a continent, in winning a wilderness, and in developing at each area of this progress out of theprimitive economic and political conditions of the frontier into the complexity of city life Said Calhoun in

1817, "We are great, and rapidly I was about to say fearfully growing!"[2:1] So saying, he touched thedistinguishing feature of American life All peoples show development; the germ theory of politics has beensufficiently emphasized In the case of most nations, however, the development has occurred in a limited area;and if the nation has expanded, it has met other growing peoples whom it has conquered But in the case of

the United States we have a different phenomenon Limiting our attention to the Atlantic coast, we have thefamiliar phenomenon of the evolution of institutions in a limited area, such as the rise of representativegovernment; the differentiation of simple colonial governments into complex organs; the progress fromprimitive industrial society, without division of labor, up to manufacturing civilization But we have in

addition to this a recurrence of the process of evolution in each western area reached in the process of

expansion Thus American development has exhibited not merely advance along a single line, but a return toprimitive conditions on a continually advancing frontier line, and a new development for that area Americansocial development has been continually beginning over again on the frontier This perennial rebirth, thisfluidity of American life, this expansion westward with its new opportunities, its continuous touch with thesimplicity of primitive society, furnish the forces dominating American character The true point of view inthe history of this nation is not the Atlantic coast, it is the Great West Even the slavery struggle, which ismade so exclusive an object of attention by writers like Professor von Holst, occupies its important place inAmerican history because of its relation to westward expansion

In this advance, the frontier is the outer edge of the wave the meeting point between savagery and

civilization Much has been written about the frontier from the point of view of border warfare and the chase,but as a field for the serious study of the economist and the historian it has been neglected

The American frontier is sharply distinguished from the European frontier a fortified boundary line runningthrough dense populations The most significant thing about the American frontier is, that it lies at the hitheredge of free land In the census reports it is treated as the margin of that settlement which has a density of two

or more to the square mile The term is an elastic one, and for our purposes does not need sharp definition Weshall consider the whole frontier belt, including the Indian country and the outer margin of the "settled area"

of the census reports This paper will make no attempt to treat the subject exhaustively; its aim is simply tocall attention to the frontier as a fertile field for investigation, and to suggest some of the problems which arise

in connection with it

In the settlement of America we have to observe how European life entered the continent, and how Americamodified and developed that life and reacted on Europe Our early history is the study of European germsdeveloping in an American environment Too exclusive attention has been paid by institutional students to theGermanic origins, too little to the American factors The frontier is the line of most rapid and effective

Americanization The wilderness masters the colonist It finds him a European in dress, industries, tools,modes of travel, and thought It takes him from the railroad car and puts him in the birch canoe It strips offthe garments of civilization and arrays him in the hunting shirt and the moccasin It puts him in the log cabin

of the Cherokee and Iroquois and runs an Indian palisade around him Before long he has gone to plantingIndian corn and plowing with a sharp stick; he shouts the war cry and takes the scalp in orthodox Indianfashion In short, at the frontier the environment is at first too strong for the man He must accept the

conditions which it furnishes, or perish, and so he fits himself into the Indian clearings and follows the Indiantrails Little by little he transforms the wilderness, but the outcome is not the old Europe, not simply thedevelopment of Germanic germs, any more than the first phenomenon was a case of reversion to the

Germanic mark The fact is, that here is a new product that is American At first, the frontier was the Atlanticcoast It was the frontier of Europe in a very real sense Moving westward, the frontier became more and moreAmerican As successive terminal moraines result from successive glaciations, so each frontier leaves itstraces behind it, and when it becomes a settled area the region still partakes of the frontier characteristics.Thus the advance of the frontier has meant a steady movement away from the influence of Europe, a steadygrowth of independence on American lines And to study this advance, the men who grew up under theseconditions, and the political, economic, and social results of it, is to study the really American part of ourhistory

In the course of the seventeenth century the frontier was advanced up the Atlantic river courses, just beyondthe "fall line," and the tidewater region became the settled area In the first half of the eighteenth centuryanother advance occurred Traders followed the Delaware and Shawnese Indians to the Ohio as early as the

end of the first quarter of the century.[5:1] Gov Spotswood, of Virginia, made an expedition in 1714 acrossthe Blue Ridge The end of the first quarter of the century saw the advance of the Scotch-Irish and the PalatineGermans up the Shenandoah Valley into the western part of Virginia, and along the Piedmont region of theCarolinas.[5:2] The Germans in New York pushed the frontier of settlement up the Mohawk to GermanFlats.[5:3] In Pennsylvania the town of Bedford indicates the line of settlement Settlements soon began onthe New River, or the Great Kanawha, and on the sources of the Yadkin and French Broad.[5:4] The Kingattempted to arrest the advance by his proclamation of 1763,[5:5] forbidding settlements beyond the sources

of the rivers flowing into the Atlantic; but in vain In the period of the Revolution the frontier crossed theAlleghanies into Kentucky and Tennessee, and the upper waters of the Ohio were settled.[5:6] When the firstcensus was taken in 1790, the continuous settled area was bounded by a line which ran near the coast ofMaine, and included New England except a portion of Vermont and New Hampshire, New York along theHudson and up the Mohawk about Schenectady, eastern and southern Pennsylvania, Virginia well across theShenandoah Valley, and the Carolinas and eastern Georgia.[6:1] Beyond this region of continuous settlementwere the small settled areas of Kentucky and Tennessee, and the Ohio, with the mountains intervening

between them and the Atlantic area, thus giving a new and important character to the frontier The isolation ofthe region increased its peculiarly American tendencies, and the need of transportation facilities to connect itwith the East called out important schemes of internal improvement, which will be noted farther on The

"West," as a self-conscious section, began to evolve

From decade to decade distinct advances of the frontier occurred By the census of 1820[6:2] the settled areaincluded Ohio, southern Indiana and Illinois, southeastern Missouri, and about one-half of Louisiana Thissettled area had surrounded Indian areas, and the management of these tribes became an object of politicalconcern The frontier region of the time lay along the Great Lakes, where Astor's American Fur Companyoperated in the Indian trade,[6:3] and beyond the Mississippi, where Indian traders extended their activityeven to the Rocky Mountains; Florida also furnished frontier conditions The Mississippi River region was thescene of typical frontier settlements.[7:1]

The rising steam navigation[7:2] on western waters, the opening of the Erie Canal, and the westward

extension of cotton[7:3] culture added five frontier states to the Union in this period Grund, writing in 1836,declares: "It appears then that the universal disposition of Americans to emigrate to the western wilderness, inorder to enlarge their dominion over inanimate nature, is the actual result of an expansive power which isinherent in them, and which by continually agitating all classes of society is constantly throwing a largeportion of the whole population on the extreme confines of the State, in order to gain space for its

development Hardly is a new State or Territory formed before the same principle manifests itself again andgives rise to a further emigration; and so is it destined to go on until a physical barrier must finally obstruct itsprogress."[7:4]

In the middle of this century the line indicated by the present eastern boundary of Indian Territory, Nebraska,and Kansas marked the frontier of the Indian country.[8:1] Minnesota and Wisconsin still exhibited frontierconditions,[8:2] but the distinctive frontier of the period is found in California, where the gold discoveries hadsent a sudden tide of adventurous miners, and in Oregon, and the settlements in Utah.[8:3] As the frontier hadleaped over the Alleghanies, so now it skipped the Great Plains and the Rocky Mountains; and in the sameway that the advance of the frontiersmen beyond the Alleghanies had caused the rise of important questions oftransportation and internal improvement, so now the settlers beyond the Rocky Mountains needed means ofcommunication with the East, and in the furnishing of these arose the settlement of the Great Plains and thedevelopment of still another kind of frontier life Railroads, fostered by land grants, sent an increasing tide ofimmigrants into the Far West The United States Army fought a series of Indian wars in Minnesota, Dakota,and the Indian Territory

By 1880 the settled area had been pushed into northern Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota, along Dakotarivers, and in the Black Hills region, and was ascending the rivers of Kansas and Nebraska The development

of mines in Colorado had drawn isolated frontier settlements into that region, and Montana and Idaho were

receiving settlers The frontier was found in these mining camps and the ranches of the Great Plains Thesuperintendent of the census for 1890 reports, as previously stated, that the settlements of the West lie soscattered over the region that there can no longer be said to be a frontier line.

In these successive frontiers we find natural boundary lines which have served to mark and to affect thecharacteristics of the frontiers, namely: the "fall line;" the Alleghany Mountains; the Mississippi; the Missouriwhere its direction approximates north and south; the line of the arid lands, approximately the ninety-ninthmeridian; and the Rocky Mountains The fall line marked the frontier of the seventeenth century; the

Alleghanies that of the eighteenth; the Mississippi that of the first quarter of the nineteenth; the Missouri that

of the middle of this century (omitting the California movement); and the belt of the Rocky Mountains and thearid tract, the present frontier Each was won by a series of Indian wars

At the Atlantic frontier one can study the germs of processes repeated at each successive frontier We have thecomplex European life sharply precipitated by the wilderness into the simplicity of primitive conditions Thefirst frontier had to meet its Indian question, its question of the disposition of the public domain, of the means

of intercourse with older settlements, of the extension of political organization, of religious and educationalactivity And the settlement of these and similar questions for one frontier served as a guide for the next TheAmerican student needs not to go to the "prim little townships of Sleswick" for illustrations of the law ofcontinuity and development For example, he may study the origin of our land policies in the colonial landpolicy; he may see how the system grew by adapting the statutes to the customs of the successive

frontiers.[10:1] He may see how the mining experience in the lead regions of Wisconsin, Illinois, and Iowawas applied to the mining laws of the Sierras,[10:2] and how our Indian policy has been a series of

experimentations on successive frontiers Each tier of new States has found in the older ones material for itsconstitutions.[10:3] Each frontier has made similar contributions to American character, as will be discussedfarther on

But with all these similarities there are essential differences due to the place element and the time element It

is evident that the farming frontier of the Mississippi Valley presents different conditions from the miningfrontier of the Rocky Mountains The frontier reached by the Pacific Railroad, surveyed into rectangles,guarded by the United States Army, and recruited by the daily immigrant ship, moves forward at a swifterpace and in a different way than the frontier reached by the birch canoe or the pack horse The geologist tracespatiently the shores of ancient seas, maps their areas, and compares the older and the newer It would be awork worth the historian's labors to mark these various frontiers and in detail compare one with another Notonly would there result a more adequate conception of American development and characteristics, but

invaluable additions would be made to the history of society

Loria,[11:1] the Italian economist, has urged the study of colonial life as an aid in understanding the stages ofEuropean development, affirming that colonial settlement is for economic science what the mountain is forgeology, bringing to light primitive stratifications "America," he says, "has the key to the historical enigmawhich Europe has sought for centuries in vain, and the land which has no history reveals luminously thecourse of universal history." There is much truth in this The United States lies like a huge page in the history

of society Line by line as we read this continental page from West to East we find the record of social

evolution It begins with the Indian and the hunter; it goes on to tell of the disintegration of savagery by theentrance of the trader, the pathfinder of civilization; we read the annals of the pastoral stage in ranch life; theexploitation of the soil by the raising of unrotated crops of corn and wheat in sparsely settled farming

communities; the intensive culture of the denser farm settlement; and finally the manufacturing organizationwith city and factory system.[11:2] This page is familiar to the student of census statistics, but how little of ithas been used by our historians Particularly in eastern States this page is a palimpsest What is now a

manufacturing State was in an earlier decade an area of intensive farming Earlier yet it had been a wheat area,and still earlier the "range" had attracted the cattle-herder Thus Wisconsin, now developing manufacture, is aState with varied agricultural interests But earlier it was given over to almost exclusive grain-raising, likeNorth Dakota at the present time

Each of these areas has had an influence in our economic and political history; the evolution of each into ahigher stage has worked political transformations But what constitutional historian has made any adequateattempt to interpret political facts by the light of these social areas and changes?[12:1]

The Atlantic frontier was compounded of fisherman, fur-trader, miner, cattle-raiser, and farmer Excepting thefisherman, each type of industry was on the march toward the West, impelled by an irresistible attraction.Each passed in successive waves across the continent Stand at Cumberland Gap and watch the procession ofcivilization, marching single file the buffalo following the trail to the salt springs, the Indian, the fur-traderand hunter, the cattle-raiser, the pioneer farmer and the frontier has passed by Stand at South Pass in theRockies a century later and see the same procession with wider intervals between The unequal rate of

advance compels us to distinguish the frontier into the trader's frontier, the rancher's frontier, or the miner'sfrontier, and the farmer's frontier When the mines and the cow pens were still near the fall line the traders'pack trains were tinkling across the Alleghanies, and the French on the Great Lakes were fortifying theirposts, alarmed by the British trader's birch canoe When the trappers scaled the Rockies, the farmer was stillnear the mouth of the Missouri

Why was it that the Indian trader passed so rapidly across the continent? What effects followed from thetrader's frontier? The trade was coeval with American discovery The Norsemen, Vespuccius, Verrazani,Hudson, John Smith, all trafficked for furs The Plymouth pilgrims settled in Indian cornfields, and their firstreturn cargo was of beaver and lumber The records of the various New England colonies show how steadilyexploration was carried into the wilderness by this trade What is true for New England is, as would be

expected, even plainer for the rest of the colonies All along the coast from Maine to Georgia the Indian tradeopened up the river courses Steadily the trader passed westward, utilizing the older lines of French trade TheOhio, the Great Lakes, the Mississippi, the Missouri, and the Platte, the lines of western advance, were

ascended by traders They found the passes in the Rocky Mountains and guided Lewis and Clark,[13:1]Frémont, and Bidwell The explanation of the rapidity of this advance is connected with the effects of thetrader on the Indian The trading post left the unarmed tribes at the mercy of those that had purchased

fire-arms a truth which the Iroquois Indians wrote in blood, and so the remote and unvisited tribes gave eagerwelcome to the trader "The savages," wrote La Salle, "take better care of us French than of their own

children; from us only can they get guns and goods." This accounts for the trader's power and the rapidity ofhis advance Thus the disintegrating forces of civilization entered the wilderness Every river valley andIndian trail became a fissure in Indian society, and so that society became honeycombed Long before thepioneer farmer appeared on the scene, primitive Indian life had passed away The farmers met Indians armedwith guns The trading frontier, while steadily undermining Indian power by making the tribes ultimatelydependent on the whites, yet, through its sale of guns, gave to the Indian increased power of resistance to thefarming frontier French colonization was dominated by its trading frontier; English colonization by its

farming frontier There was an antagonism between the two frontiers as between the two nations Said

Duquesne to the Iroquois, "Are you ignorant of the difference between the king of England and the king ofFrance? Go see the forts that our king has established and you will see that you can still hunt under their verywalls They have been placed for your advantage in places which you frequent The English, on the contrary,are no sooner in possession of a place than the game is driven away The forest falls before them as theyadvance, and the soil is laid bare so that you can scarce find the wherewithal to erect a shelter for the night."

And yet, in spite of this opposition of the interests of the trader and the farmer, the Indian trade pioneered theway for civilization The buffalo trail became the Indian trail, and this became the trader's "trace;" the trailswidened into roads, and the roads into turnpikes, and these in turn were transformed into railroads The sameorigin can be shown for the railroads of the South, the Far West, and the Dominion of Canada.[14:1] Thetrading posts reached by these trails were on the sites of Indian villages which had been placed in positionssuggested by nature; and these trading posts, situated so as to command the water systems of the country, havegrown into such cities as Albany, Pittsburgh, Detroit, Chicago, St Louis, Council Bluffs, and Kansas City.Thus civilization in America has followed the arteries made by geology, pouring an ever richer tide throughthem, until at last the slender paths of aboriginal intercourse have been broadened and interwoven into the

complex mazes of modern commercial lines; the wilderness has been interpenetrated by lines of civilizationgrowing ever more numerous It is like the steady growth of a complex nervous system for the originallysimple, inert continent If one would understand why we are to-day one nation, rather than a collection ofisolated states, he must study this economic and social consolidation of the country In this progress fromsavage conditions lie topics for the evolutionist.[15:1]

The effect of the Indian frontier as a consolidating agent in our history is important From the close of theseventeenth century various intercolonial congresses have been called to treat with Indians and establishcommon measures of defense Particularism was strongest in colonies with no Indian frontier This frontierstretched along the western border like a cord of union The Indian was a common danger, demanding unitedaction Most celebrated of these conferences was the Albany congress of 1754, called to treat with the SixNations, and to consider plans of union Even a cursory reading of the plan proposed by the congress revealsthe importance of the frontier The powers of the general council and the officers were, chiefly, the

determination of peace and war with the Indians, the regulation of Indian trade, the purchase of Indian lands,and the creation and government of new settlements as a security against the Indians It is evident that theunifying tendencies of the Revolutionary period were facilitated by the previous coöperation in the regulation

of the frontier In this connection may be mentioned the importance of the frontier, from that day to this, as amilitary training school, keeping alive the power of resistance to aggression, and developing the stalwart andrugged qualities of the frontiersman

It would not be possible in the limits of this paper to trace the other frontiers across the continent Travelers ofthe eighteenth century found the "cowpens" among the canebrakes and peavine pastures of the South, and the

"cow drivers" took their droves to Charleston, Philadelphia, and New York.[16:1] Travelers at the close of theWar of 1812 met droves of more than a thousand cattle and swine from the interior of Ohio going to

Pennsylvania to fatten for the Philadelphia market.[16:2] The ranges of the Great Plains, with ranch andcowboy and nomadic life, are things of yesterday and of to-day The experience of the Carolina cowpensguided the ranchers of Texas One element favoring the rapid extension of the rancher's frontier is the fact that

in a remote country lacking transportation facilities the product must be in small bulk, or must be able totransport itself, and the cattle raiser could easily drive his product to market The effect of these great ranches

on the subsequent agrarian history of the localities in which they existed should be studied

The maps of the census reports show an uneven advance of the farmer's frontier, with tongues of settlementpushed forward and with indentations of wilderness In part this is due to Indian resistance, in part to thelocation of river valleys and passes, in part to the unequal force of the centers of frontier attraction Amongthe important centers of attraction may be mentioned the following: fertile and favorably situated soils, saltsprings, mines, and army posts

The frontier army post, serving to protect the settlers from the Indians, has also acted as a wedge to open theIndian country, and has been a nucleus for settlement.[16:3] In this connection mention should also be made

of the government military and exploring expeditions in determining the lines of settlement But all the moreimportant expeditions were greatly indebted to the earliest pathmakers, the Indian guides, the traders andtrappers, and the French voyageurs, who were inevitable parts of governmental expeditions from the days ofLewis and Clark.[17:1] Each expedition was an epitome of the previous factors in western advance

In an interesting monograph, Victor Hehn[17:2] has traced the effect of salt upon early European

development, and has pointed out how it affected the lines of settlement and the form of administration Asimilar study might be made for the salt springs of the United States The early settlers were tied to the coast

by the need of salt, without which they could not preserve their meats or live in comfort Writing in 1752,Bishop Spangenburg says of a colony for which he was seeking lands in North Carolina, "They will requiresalt & other necessaries which they can neither manufacture nor raise Either they must go to Charleston,which is 300 miles distant Or else they must go to Boling's Point in V{a} on a branch of the James & isalso 300 miles from here Or else they must go down the Roanoke I know not how many miles where salt

is brought up from the Cape Fear."[17:3] This may serve as a typical illustration An annual pilgrimage to thecoast for salt thus became essential Taking flocks or furs and ginseng root, the early settlers sent their packtrains after seeding time each year to the coast.[17:4] This proved to be an important educational influence,since it was almost the only way in which the pioneer learned what was going on in the East But whendiscovery was made of the salt springs of the Kanawha, and the Holston, and Kentucky, and central NewYork, the West began to be freed from dependence on the coast It was in part the effect of finding these saltsprings that enabled settlement to cross the mountains.

From the time the mountains rose between the pioneer and the seaboard, a new order of Americanism arose.The West and the East began to get out of touch of each other The settlements from the sea to the mountainskept connection with the rear and had a certain solidarity But the over-mountain men grew more and moreindependent The East took a narrow view of American advance, and nearly lost these men Kentucky andTennessee history bears abundant witness to the truth of this statement The East began to try to hedge andlimit westward expansion Though Webster could declare that there were no Alleghanies in his politics, yet inpolitics in general they were a very solid factor

The exploitation of the beasts took hunter and trader to the west, the exploitation of the grasses took therancher west, and the exploitation of the virgin soil of the river valleys and prairies attracted the farmer Goodsoils have been the most continuous attraction to the farmer's frontier The land hunger of the Virginians drewthem down the rivers into Carolina, in early colonial days; the search for soils took the Massachusetts men toPennsylvania and to New York As the eastern lands were taken up migration flowed across them to the west.Daniel Boone, the great backwoodsman, who combined the occupations of hunter, trader, cattle-raiser, farmer,and surveyor learning, probably from the traders, of the fertility of the lands of the upper Yadkin, where thetraders were wont to rest as they took their way to the Indians, left his Pennsylvania home with his father, andpassed down the Great Valley road to that stream Learning from a trader of the game and rich pastures ofKentucky, he pioneered the way for the farmers to that region Thence he passed to the frontier of Missouri,where his settlement was long a landmark on the frontier Here again he helped to open the way for

civilization, finding salt licks, and trails, and land His son was among the earliest trappers in the passes of theRocky Mountains, and his party are said to have been the first to camp on the present site of Denver Hisgrandson, Col A J Boone, of Colorado, was a power among the Indians of the Rocky Mountains, and wasappointed an agent by the government Kit Carson's mother was a Boone.[19:1] Thus this family epitomizesthe backwoodsman's advance across the continent

The farmer's advance came in a distinct series of waves In Peck's New Guide to the West, published inBoston in 1837, occurs this suggestive passage:

Generally, in all the western settlements, three classes, like the waves of the ocean, have rolled one after theother First comes the pioneer, who depends for the subsistence of his family chiefly upon the natural growth

of vegetation, called the "range," and the proceeds of hunting His implements of agriculture are rude, chiefly

of his own make, and his efforts directed mainly to a crop of corn and a "truck patch." The last is a rudegarden for growing cabbage, beans, corn for roasting ears, cucumbers, and potatoes A log cabin, and,

occasionally, a stable and corn-crib, and a field of a dozen acres, the timber girdled or "deadened," and

fenced, are enough for his occupancy It is quite immaterial whether he ever becomes the owner of the soil

He is the occupant for the time being, pays no rent, and feels as independent as the "lord of the manor." With

a horse, cow, and one or two breeders of swine, he strikes into the woods with his family, and becomes thefounder of a new county, or perhaps state He builds his cabin, gathers around him a few other families ofsimilar tastes and habits, and occupies till the range is somewhat subdued, and hunting a little precarious, or,which is more frequently the case, till the neighbors crowd around, roads, bridges, and fields annoy him, and

he lacks elbow room The preëmption law enables him to dispose of his cabin and cornfield to the next class

of emigrants; and, to employ his own figures, he "breaks for the high timber," "clears out for the New

Purchase," or migrates to Arkansas or Texas, to work the same process over

The next class of emigrants purchase the lands, add field to field, clear out the roads, throw rough bridges overthe streams, put up hewn log houses with glass windows and brick or stone chimneys, occasionally plantorchards, build mills, school-houses, court-houses, etc., and exhibit the picture and forms of plain, frugal,civilized life.

Another wave rolls on The men of capital and enterprise come The settler is ready to sell out and take theadvantage of the rise in property, push farther into the interior and become, himself, a man of capital andenterprise in turn The small village rises to a spacious town or city; substantial edifices of brick, extensivefields, orchards, gardens, colleges, and churches are seen Broadcloths, silks, leghorns, crapes, and all therefinements, luxuries, elegancies, frivolities, and fashions are in vogue Thus wave after wave is rollingwestward; the real Eldorado is still farther on

A portion of the two first classes remain stationary amidst the general movement, improve their habits andcondition, and rise in the scale of society

The writer has traveled much amongst the first class, the real pioneers He has lived many years in connectionwith the second grade; and now the third wave is sweeping over large districts of Indiana, Illinois, and

Missouri Migration has become almost a habit in the West Hundreds of men can be found, not over 50 years

of age, who have settled for the fourth, fifth, or sixth time on a new spot To sell out and remove only a fewhundred miles makes up a portion of the variety of backwoods life and manners.[21:1]

Omitting those of the pioneer farmers who move from the love of adventure, the advance of the more steadyfarmer is easy to understand Obviously the immigrant was attracted by the cheap lands of the frontier, andeven the native farmer felt their influence strongly Year by year the farmers who lived on soil whose returnswere diminished by unrotated crops were offered the virgin soil of the frontier at nominal prices Their

growing families demanded more lands, and these were dear The competition of the unexhausted, cheap, andeasily tilled prairie lands compelled the farmer either to go west and continue the exhaustion of the soil on anew frontier, or to adopt intensive culture Thus the census of 1890 shows, in the Northwest, many counties inwhich there is an absolute or a relative decrease of population These States have been sending farmers toadvance the frontier on the plains, and have themselves begun to turn to intensive farming and to manufacture

A decade before this, Ohio had shown the same transition stage Thus the demand for land and the love ofwilderness freedom drew the frontier ever onward

Having now roughly outlined the various kinds of frontiers, and their modes of advance, chiefly from thepoint of view of the frontier itself, we may next inquire what were the influences on the East and on the OldWorld A rapid enumeration of some of the more noteworthy effects is all that I have time for

First, we note that the frontier promoted the formation of a composite nationality for the American people.The coast was preponderantly English, but the later tides of continental immigration flowed across to the freelands This was the case from the early colonial days The Scotch-Irish and the Palatine Germans, or

"Pennsylvania Dutch," furnished the dominant element in the stock of the colonial frontier With these

peoples were also the freed indented servants, or redemptioners, who at the expiration of their time of servicepassed to the frontier Governor Spotswood of Virginia writes in 1717, "The inhabitants of our frontiers arecomposed generally of such as have been transported hither as servants, and, being out of their time, settlethemselves where land is to be taken up and that will produce the necessarys of life with little labour."[22:1]Very generally these redemptioners were of non-English stock In the crucible of the frontier the immigrantswere Americanized, liberated, and fused into a mixed race, English in neither nationality nor characteristics.The process has gone on from the early days to our own Burke and other writers in the middle of the

eighteenth century believed that Pennsylvania[23:1] was "threatened with the danger of being wholly foreign

in language, manners, and perhaps even inclinations." The German and Scotch-Irish elements in the frontier

of the South were only less great In the middle of the present century the German element in Wisconsin wasalready so considerable that leading publicists looked to the creation of a German state out of the

commonwealth by concentrating their colonization.[23:2] Such examples teach us to beware of

misinterpreting the fact that there is a common English speech in America into a belief that the stock is alsoEnglish

In another way the advance of the frontier decreased our dependence on England The coast, particularly ofthe South, lacked diversified industries, and was dependent on England for the bulk of its supplies In theSouth there was even a dependence on the Northern colonies for articles of food Governor Glenn, of SouthCarolina, writes in the middle of the eighteenth century: "Our trade with New York and Philadelphia was ofthis sort, draining us of all the little money and bills we could gather from other places for their bread, flour,beer, hams, bacon, and other things of their produce, all which, except beer, our new townships begin tosupply us with, which are settled with very industrious and thriving Germans This no doubt diminishes thenumber of shipping and the appearance of our trade, but it is far from being a detriment to us."[23:3]

Before long the frontier created a demand for merchants As it retreated from the coast it became less and lesspossible for England to bring her supplies directly to the consumer's wharfs, and carry away staple crops, andstaple crops began to give way to diversified agriculture for a time The effect of this phase of the frontieraction upon the northern section is perceived when we realize how the advance of the frontier aroused

seaboard cities like Boston, New York, and Baltimore, to engage in rivalry for what Washington called "theextensive and valuable trade of a rising empire."

The legislation which most developed the powers of the national government, and played the largest part in itsactivity, was conditioned on the frontier Writers have discussed the subjects of tariff, land, and internalimprovement, as subsidiary to the slavery question But when American history comes to be rightly viewed itwill be seen that the slavery question is an incident In the period from the end of the first half of the presentcentury to the close of the Civil War slavery rose to primary, but far from exclusive, importance But this doesnot justify Dr von Holst (to take an example) in treating our constitutional history in its formative perioddown to 1828 in a single volume, giving six volumes chiefly to the history of slavery from 1828 to 1861,under the title "Constitutional History of the United States." The growth of nationalism and the evolution ofAmerican political institutions were dependent on the advance of the frontier Even so recent a writer asRhodes, in his "History of the United States since the Compromise of 1850," has treated the legislation calledout by the western advance as incidental to the slavery struggle

This is a wrong perspective The pioneer needed the goods of the coast, and so the grand series of internalimprovement and railroad legislation began, with potent nationalizing effects Over internal improvementsoccurred great debates, in which grave constitutional questions were discussed Sectional groupings appear inthe votes, profoundly significant for the historian Loose construction increased as the nation marched

westward.[25:1] But the West was not content with bringing the farm to the factory Under the lead of

Clay "Harry of the West" protective tariffs were passed, with the cry of bringing the factory to the farm Thedisposition of the public lands was a third important subject of national legislation influenced by the frontier.The public domain has been a force of profound importance in the nationalization and development of thegovernment The effects of the struggle of the landed and the landless States, and of the Ordinance of 1787,need no discussion.[25:2] Administratively the frontier called out some of the highest and most vitalizingactivities of the general government The purchase of Louisiana was perhaps the constitutional turning point

in the history of the Republic, inasmuch as it afforded both a new area for national legislation and the

occasion of the downfall of the policy of strict construction But the purchase of Louisiana was called out byfrontier needs and demands As frontier States accrued to the Union the national power grew In a speech onthe dedication of the Calhoun monument Mr Lamar explained: "In 1789 the States were the creators of theFederal Government; in 1861 the Federal Government was the creator of a large majority of the States."When we consider the public domain from the point of view of the sale and disposal of the public lands weare again brought face to face with the frontier The policy of the United States in dealing with its lands is in

sharp contrast with the European system of scientific administration Efforts to make this domain a source ofrevenue, and to withhold it from emigrants in order that settlement might be compact, were in vain Thejealousy and the fears of the East were powerless in the face of the demands of the frontiersmen John QuincyAdams was obliged to confess: "My own system of administration, which was to make the national domainthe inexhaustible fund for progressive and unceasing internal improvement, has failed." The reason is

obvious; a system of administration was not what the West demanded; it wanted land Adams states thesituation as follows: "The slaveholders of the South have bought the coöperation of the western country by thebribe of the western lands, abandoning to the new Western States their own proportion of the public propertyand aiding them in the design of grasping all the lands into their own hands." Thomas H Benton was theauthor of this system, which he brought forward as a substitute for the American system of Mr Clay, and tosupplant him as the leading statesman of the West Mr Clay, by his tariff compromise with Mr Calhoun,abandoned his own American system At the same time he brought forward a plan for distributing among allthe States of the Union the proceeds of the sales of the public lands His bill for that purpose passed bothHouses of Congress, but was vetoed by President Jackson, who, in his annual message of December, 1832,formally recommended that all public lands should be gratuitously given away to individual adventurers and

to the States in which the lands are situated.[26:1]

"No subject," said Henry Clay, "which has presented itself to the present, or perhaps any preceding, Congress,

is of greater magnitude than that of the public lands." When we consider the far-reaching effects of the

government's land policy upon political, economic, and social aspects of American life, we are disposed toagree with him But this legislation was framed under frontier influences, and under the lead of Westernstatesmen like Benton and Jackson Said Senator Scott of Indiana in 1841: "I consider the preëmption lawmerely declaratory of the custom or common law of the settlers."

It is safe to say that the legislation with regard to land, tariff, and internal improvements the Americansystem of the nationalizing Whig party was conditioned on frontier ideas and needs But it was not merely inlegislative action that the frontier worked against the sectionalism of the coast The economic and socialcharacteristics of the frontier worked against sectionalism The men of the frontier had closer resemblances tothe Middle region than to either of the other sections Pennsylvania had been the seed-plot of frontier

emigration, and, although she passed on her settlers along the Great Valley into the west of Virginia and theCarolinas, yet the industrial society of these Southern frontiersmen was always more like that of the Middleregion than like that of the tide-water portion of the South, which later came to spread its industrial typethroughout the South

The Middle region, entered by New York harbor, was an open door to all Europe The tide-water part of theSouth represented typical Englishmen, modified by a warm climate and servile labor, and living in baronialfashion on great plantations; New England stood for a special English movement Puritanism The Middleregion was less English than the other sections It had a wide mixture of nationalities, a varied society, themixed town and county system of local government, a varied economic life, many religious sects In short, itwas a region mediating between New England and the South, and the East and the West It represented thatcomposite nationality which the contemporary United States exhibits, that juxtaposition of non-Englishgroups, occupying a valley or a little settlement, and presenting reflections of the map of Europe in theirvariety It was democratic and nonsectional, if not national; "easy, tolerant, and contented;" rooted strongly inmaterial prosperity It was typical of the modern United States It was least sectional, not only because it laybetween North and South, but also because with no barriers to shut out its frontiers from its settled region, andwith a system of connecting waterways, the Middle region mediated between East and West as well as

between North and South Thus it became the typically American region Even the New Englander, who wasshut out from the frontier by the Middle region, tarrying in New York or Pennsylvania on his westwardmarch, lost the acuteness of his sectionalism on the way.[28:1]

The spread of cotton culture into the interior of the South finally broke down the contrast between the

"tide-water" region and the rest of the State, and based Southern interests on slavery Before this process

revealed its results the western portion of the South, which was akin to Pennsylvania in stock, society, andindustry, showed tendencies to fall away from the faith of the fathers into internal improvement legislationand nationalism In the Virginia convention of 1829-30, called to revise the constitution, Mr Leigh, of

Chesterfield, one of the tide-water counties, declared:

One of the main causes of discontent which led to this convention, that which had the strongest influence inovercoming our veneration for the work of our fathers, which taught us to contemn the sentiments of Henryand Mason and Pendleton, which weaned us from our reverence for the constituted authorities of the State,was an overweening passion for internal improvement I say this with perfect knowledge, for it has beenavowed to me by gentlemen from the West over and over again And let me tell the gentleman from

Albemarle (Mr Gordon) that it has been another principal object of those who set this ball of revolution inmotion, to overturn the doctrine of State rights, of which Virginia has been the very pillar, and to remove thebarrier she has interposed to the interference of the Federal Government in that same work of internal

improvement, by so reorganizing the legislature that Virginia, too, may be hitched to the Federal car

It was this nationalizing tendency of the West that transformed the democracy of Jefferson into the nationalrepublicanism of Monroe and the democracy of Andrew Jackson The West of the War of 1812, the West ofClay, and Benton and Harrison, and Andrew Jackson, shut off by the Middle States and the mountains fromthe coast sections, had a solidarity of its own with national tendencies.[29:1] On the tide of the Father ofWaters, North and South met and mingled into a nation Interstate migration went steadily on a process ofcross-fertilization of ideas and institutions The fierce struggle of the sections over slavery on the westernfrontier does not diminish the truth of this statement; it proves the truth of it Slavery was a sectional trait thatwould not down, but in the West it could not remain sectional It was the greatest of frontiersmen who

declared: "I believe this Government can not endure permanently half slave and half free It will become all ofone thing or all of the other." Nothing works for nationalism like intercourse within the nation Mobility ofpopulation is death to localism, and the western frontier worked irresistibly in unsettling population Theeffect reached back from the frontier and affected profoundly the Atlantic coast and even the Old World

But the most important effect of the frontier has been in the promotion of democracy here and in Europe Ashas been indicated, the frontier is productive of individualism Complex society is precipitated by the

wilderness into a kind of primitive organization based on the family The tendency is anti-social It producesantipathy to control, and particularly to any direct control The tax-gatherer is viewed as a representative ofoppression Prof Osgood, in an able article,[30:1] has pointed out that the frontier conditions prevalent in thecolonies are important factors in the explanation of the American Revolution, where individual liberty wassometimes confused with absence of all effective government The same conditions aid in explaining thedifficulty of instituting a strong government in the period of the confederacy The frontier individualism hasfrom the beginning promoted democracy

The frontier States that came into the Union in the first quarter of a century of its existence came in withdemocratic suffrage provisions, and had reactive effects of the highest importance upon the older States whose

peoples were being attracted there An extension of the franchise became essential It was western New York that forced an extension of suffrage in the constitutional convention of that State in 1821; and it was western

Virginia that compelled the tide-water region to put a more liberal suffrage provision in the constitutionframed in 1830, and to give to the frontier region a more nearly proportionate representation with the

tide-water aristocracy The rise of democracy as an effective force in the nation came in with western

preponderance under Jackson and William Henry Harrison, and it meant the triumph of the frontier with all

of its good and with all of its evil elements.[31:1] An interesting illustration of the tone of frontier democracy

in 1830 comes from the same debates in the Virginia convention already referred to A representative fromwestern Virginia declared:

But, sir, it is not the increase of population in the West which this gentleman ought to fear It is the energywhich the mountain breeze and western habits impart to those emigrants They are regenerated, politically I

mean, sir They soon become working politicians; and the difference, sir, between a talking and a working

politician is immense The Old Dominion has long been celebrated for producing great orators; the ablestmetaphysicians in policy; men that can split hairs in all abstruse questions of political economy But at home,

or when they return from Congress, they have negroes to fan them asleep But a Pennsylvania, a New York,

an Ohio, or a western Virginia statesman, though far inferior in logic, metaphysics, and rhetoric to an oldVirginia statesman, has this advantage, that when he returns home he takes off his coat and takes hold of theplow This gives him bone and muscle, sir, and preserves his republican principles pure and uncontaminated

So long as free land exists, the opportunity for a competency exists, and economic power secures politicalpower But the democracy born of free land, strong in selfishness and individualism, intolerant of

administrative experience and education, and pressing individual liberty beyond its proper bounds, has itsdangers as well as its benefits Individualism in America has allowed a laxity in regard to governmental affairswhich has rendered possible the spoils system and all the manifest evils that follow from the lack of a highlydeveloped civic spirit In this connection may be noted also the influence of frontier conditions in permittinglax business honor, inflated paper currency and wild-cat banking The colonial and revolutionary frontier wasthe region whence emanated many of the worst forms of an evil currency.[32:1] The West in the War of 1812repeated the phenomenon on the frontier of that day, while the speculation and wild-cat banking of the period

of the crisis of 1837 occurred on the new frontier belt of the next tier of States Thus each one of the periods

of lax financial integrity coincides with periods when a new set of frontier communities had arisen, andcoincides in area with these successive frontiers, for the most part The recent Populist agitation is a case inpoint Many a State that now declines any connection with the tenets of the Populists, itself adhered to suchideas in an earlier stage of the development of the State A primitive society can hardly be expected to showthe intelligent appreciation of the complexity of business interests in a developed society The continualrecurrence of these areas of paper-money agitation is another evidence that the frontier can be isolated andstudied as a factor in American history of the highest importance.[32:2]

The East has always feared the result of an unregulated advance of the frontier, and has tried to check andguide it The English authorities would have checked settlement at the headwaters of the Atlantic tributariesand allowed the "savages to enjoy their deserts in quiet lest the peltry trade should decrease." This called outBurke's splendid protest:

If you stopped your grants, what would be the consequence? The people would occupy without grants Theyhave already so occupied in many places You can not station garrisons in every part of these deserts If youdrive the people from one place, they will carry on their annual tillage and remove with their flocks and herds

to another Many of the people in the back settlements are already little attached to particular situations.Already they have topped the Appalachian Mountains From thence they behold before them an immenseplain, one vast, rich, level meadow; a square of five hundred miles Over this they would wander without apossibility of restraint; they would change their manners with their habits of life; would soon forget a

government by which they were disowned; would become hordes of English Tartars; and, pouring down uponyour unfortified frontiers a fierce and irresistible cavalry, become masters of your governors and your

counselers, your collectors and comptrollers, and of all the slaves that adhered to them Such would, and in nolong time must, be the effect of attempting to forbid as a crime and to suppress as an evil the command andblessing of Providence, "Increase and multiply." Such would be the happy result of an endeavor to keep as alair of wild beasts that earth which God, by an express charter, has given to the children of men

But the English Government was not alone in its desire to limit the advance of the frontier and guide itsdestinies Tidewater Virginia[34:1] and South Carolina[34:2] gerrymandered those colonies to insure thedominance of the coast in their legislatures Washington desired to settle a State at a time in the Northwest;Jefferson would reserve from settlement the territory of his Louisiana Purchase north of the thirty-secondparallel, in order to offer it to the Indians in exchange for their settlements east of the Mississippi "When weshall be full on this side," he writes, "we may lay off a range of States on the western bank from the head tothe mouth, and so range after range, advancing compactly as we multiply." Madison went so far as to argue to

the French minister that the United States had no interest in seeing population extend itself on the right bank

of the Mississippi, but should rather fear it When the Oregon question was under debate, in 1824, Smyth, ofVirginia, would draw an unchangeable line for the limits of the United States at the outer limit of two tiers ofStates beyond the Mississippi, complaining that the seaboard States were being drained of the flower of theirpopulation by the bringing of too much land into market Even Thomas Benton, the man of widest views ofthe destiny of the West, at this stage of his career declared that along the ridge of the Rocky mountains "thewestern limits of the Republic should be drawn, and the statue of the fabled god Terminus should be raisedupon its highest peak, never to be thrown down."[35:1] But the attempts to limit the boundaries, to restrictland sales and settlement, and to deprive the West of its share of political power were all in vain Steadily thefrontier of settlement advanced and carried with it individualism, democracy, and nationalism, and powerfullyaffected the East and the Old World

The most effective efforts of the East to regulate the frontier came through its educational and religiousactivity, exerted by interstate migration and by organized societies Speaking in 1835, Dr Lyman Beecherdeclared: "It is equally plain that the religious and political destiny of our nation is to be decided in the West,"and he pointed out that the population of the West "is assembled from all the States of the Union and from allthe nations of Europe, and is rushing in like the waters of the flood, demanding for its moral preservation theimmediate and universal action of those institutions which discipline the mind and arm the conscience and theheart And so various are the opinions and habits, and so recent and imperfect is the acquaintance, and sosparse are the settlements of the West, that no homogeneous public sentiment can be formed to legislateimmediately into being the requisite institutions And yet they are all needed immediately in their utmostperfection and power A nation is being 'born in a day.' But what will become of the West if her prosperityrushes up to such a majesty of power, while those great institutions linger which are necessary to form themind and the conscience and the heart of that vast world It must not be permitted Let no man at the Eastquiet himself and dream of liberty, whatever may become of the West Her destiny is our destiny."[36:1]With the appeal to the conscience of New England, he adds appeals to her fears lest other religious sectsanticipate her own The New England preacher and school-teacher left their mark on the West The dread ofWestern emancipation from New England's political and economic control was paralleled by her fears lest theWest cut loose from her religion Commenting in 1850 on reports that settlement was rapidly extending

northward in Wisconsin, the editor of the Home Missionary writes: "We scarcely know whether to rejoice or

mourn over this extension of our settlements While we sympathize in whatever tends to increase the physicalresources and prosperity of our country, we can not forget that with all these dispersions into remote and stillremoter corners of the land the supply of the means of grace is becoming relatively less and less." Acting inaccordance with such ideas, home missions were established and Western colleges were erected As seaboardcities like Philadelphia, New York, and Baltimore strove for the mastery of Western trade, so the variousdenominations strove for the possession of the West Thus an intellectual stream from New England sourcesfertilized the West Other sections sent their missionaries; but the real struggle was between sects The contestfor power and the expansive tendency furnished to the various sects by the existence of a moving frontiermust have had important results on the character of religious organization in the United States The

multiplication of rival churches in the little frontier towns had deep and lasting social effects The religiousaspects of the frontier make a chapter in our history which needs study

From the conditions of frontier life came intellectual traits of profound importance The works of travelersalong each frontier from colonial days onward describe certain common traits, and these traits have, whilesoftening down, still persisted as survivals in the place of their origin, even when a higher social organizationsucceeded The result is that to the frontier the American intellect owes its striking characteristics Thatcoarseness and strength combined with acuteness and inquisitiveness; that practical, inventive turn of mind,quick to find expedients; that masterful grasp of material things, lacking in the artistic but powerful to effectgreat ends; that restless, nervous energy;[37:1] that dominant individualism, working for good and for evil,and withal that buoyancy and exuberance which comes with freedom these are traits of the frontier, or traitscalled out elsewhere because of the existence of the frontier Since the days when the fleet of Columbus sailed

into the waters of the New World, America has been another name for opportunity, and the people of theUnited States have taken their tone from the incessant expansion which has not only been open but has evenbeen forced upon them He would be a rash prophet who should assert that the expansive character of

American life has now entirely ceased Movement has been its dominant fact, and, unless this training has noeffect upon a people, the American energy will continually demand a wider field for its exercise But neveragain will such gifts of free land offer themselves For a moment, at the frontier, the bonds of custom are

broken and unrestraint is triumphant There is not tabula rasa The stubborn American environment is there

with its imperious summons to accept its conditions; the inherited ways of doing things are also there; and yet,

in spite of environment, and in spite of custom, each frontier did indeed furnish a new field of opportunity, agate of escape from the bondage of the past; and freshness, and confidence, and scorn of older society,

impatience of its restraints and its ideas, and indifference to its lessons, have accompanied the frontier Whatthe Mediterranean Sea was to the Greeks, breaking the bond of custom, offering new experiences, calling outnew institutions and activities, that, and more, the ever retreating frontier has been to the United States

directly, and to the nations of Europe more remotely And now, four centuries from the discovery of America,

at the end of a hundred years of life under the Constitution, the frontier has gone, and with its going has closedthe first period of American history

FOOTNOTES:

[1:1] A paper read at the meeting of the American Historical Association in Chicago, July 12, 1893 It firstappeared in the Proceedings of the State Historical Society of Wisconsin, December 14, 1893, with the

following note: "The foundation of this paper is my article entitled 'Problems in American History,' which

appeared in The Ægis, a publication of the students of the University of Wisconsin, November 4, 1892 It

is gratifying to find that Professor Woodrow Wilson whose volume on 'Division and Reunion' in the Epochs

of American History Series, has an appreciative estimate of the importance of the West as a factor in

American history accepts some of the views set forth in the papers above mentioned, and enhances their

value by his lucid and suggestive treatment of them in his article in The Forum, December, 1893, reviewing Goldwin Smith's 'History of the United States.'" The present text is that of the Report of the American

Historical Association for 1893, 199-227 It was printed with additions in the Fifth Year Book of the National Herbart Society, and in various other publications.

[2:1] "Abridgment of Debates of Congress," v, p 706

[5:1] Bancroft (1860 ed.), iii, pp 344, 345, citing Logan MSS.; [Mitchell] "Contest in America," etc (1752),

p 237

[5:2] Kercheval, "History of the Valley"; Bernheim, "German Settlements in the Carolinas"; Winsor,

"Narrative and Critical History of America," v, p 304; Colonial Records of North Carolina, iv, p xx; Weston,

"Documents Connected with the History of South Carolina," p 82; Ellis and Evans, "History of LancasterCounty, Pa.," chs iii, xxvi

[5:3] Parkman, "Pontiac," ii; Griffis, "Sir William Johnson," p 6; Simms's "Frontiersmen of New York."[5:4] Monette, "Mississippi Valley," i, p 311

[5:5] Wis Hist Cols., xi, p 50; Hinsdale, "Old Northwest," p 121; Burke, "Oration on Conciliation," Works(1872 ed.), i, p 473

[5:6] Roosevelt, "Winning of the West," and citations there given; Cutler's "Life of Cutler."

[6:1] Scribner's Statistical Atlas, xxxviii, pl 13; McMaster, "Hist of People of U S.," i, pp 4, 60, 61; Imlayand Filson, "Western Territory of America" (London, 1793); Rochefoucault-Liancourt, "Travels Through the

United States of North America" (London, 1799); Michaux's "Journal," in Proceedings American

Philosophical Society, xxvi, No 129; Forman, "Narrative of a Journey Down the Ohio and Mississippi in

1780-'90" (Cincinnati, 1888); Bartram, "Travels Through North Carolina," etc (London, 1792); Pope, "TourThrough the Southern and Western Territories," etc (Richmond, 1792); Weld, "Travels Through the States ofNorth America" (London, 1799); Baily, "Journal of a Tour in the Unsettled States of North America,

1796-'97" (London, 1856); Pennsylvania Magazine of History, July, 1886; Winsor, "Narrative and CriticalHistory of America," vii, pp 491, 492, citations

[6:2] Scribner's Statistical Atlas, xxxix

[6:3] Turner, "Character and Influence of the Indian Trade in Wisconsin" (Johns Hopkins University Studies,Series ix), pp 61 ff

[7:1] Monette, "History of the Mississippi Valley," ii; Flint, "Travels and Residence in Mississippi," Flint,

"Geography and History of the Western States," "Abridgment of Debates of Congress," vii, pp 397, 398, 404;Holmes, "Account of the U S."; Kingdom, "America and the British Colonies" (London, 1820); Grund,

"Americans," ii, chs i, iii, vi (although writing in 1836, he treats of conditions that grew out of westernadvance from the era of 1820 to that time); Peck, "Guide for Emigrants" (Boston, 1831); Darby, "Emigrants'Guide to Western and Southwestern States and Territories"; Dana, "Geographical Sketches in the WesternCountry"; Kinzie, "Waubun"; Keating, "Narrative of Long's Expedition"; Schoolcraft, "Discovery of theSources of the Mississippi River," "Travels in the Central Portions of the Mississippi Valley," and "LeadMines of the Missouri"; Andreas, "History of Illinois," i, 86-99; Hurlbut, "Chicago Antiquities"; McKenney,

"Tour to the Lakes"; Thomas, "Travels Through the Western Country," etc (Auburn, N Y., 1819)

[7:2] Darby, "Emigrants' Guide," pp 272 ff; Benton, "Abridgment of Debates," vii, p 397

[7:3] De Bow's Review, iv, p 254; xvii, p 428.

[7:4] Grund, "Americans," ii, p 8

[8:1] Peck, "New Guide to the West" (Cincinnati, 1848), ch iv; Parkman, "Oregon Trail"; Hall, "The West"(Cincinnati, 1848); Pierce, "Incidents of Western Travel"; Murray, "Travels in North America"; Lloyd,

"Steamboat Directory" (Cincinnati, 1856); "Forty Days in a Western Hotel" (Chicago), in Putnam's Magazine,

December, 1894; Mackay, "The Western World," ii, ch ii, iii; Meeker, "Life in the West"; Bogen, "German inAmerica" (Boston, 1851); Olmstead, "Texas Journey"; Greeley, "Recollections of a Busy Life"; Schouler,

"History of the United States," v, 261-267; Peyton, "Over the Alleghanies and Across the Prairies" (London,1870); Loughborough, "The Pacific Telegraph and Railway" (St Louis, 1849); Whitney, "Project for a

Railroad to the Pacific" (New York, 1849); Peyton, "Suggestions on Railroad Communication with the

Pacific, and the Trade of China and the Indian Islands"; Benton, "Highway to the Pacific" (a speech delivered

in the U S Senate, December 16, 1850)

[8:2] A writer in The Home Missionary (1850), p 239, reporting Wisconsin conditions, exclaims: "Think of

this, people of the enlightened East What an example, to come from the very frontier of civilization!" But one

of the missionaries writes: "In a few years Wisconsin will no longer be considered as the West, or as anoutpost of civilization, any more than Western New York, or the Western Reserve."

[8:3] Bancroft (H H.), "History of California," "History of Oregon," and "Popular Tribunals"; Shinn, "MiningCamps."

[10:1] See the suggestive paper by Prof Jesse Macy, "The Institutional Beginnings of a Western State."[10:2] Shinn, "Mining Camps."

[10:3] Compare Thorpe, in Annals American Academy of Political and Social Science, September, 1891;

Bryce, "American Commonwealth" (1888), ii, p 689

[11:1] Loria, Analisi della Proprieta Capitalista, ii, p 15

[11:2] Compare "Observations on the North American Land Company," London, 1796, pp xv, 144; Logan,

"History of Upper South Carolina," i, pp 149-151; Turner, "Character and Influence of Indian Trade inWisconsin," p 18; Peck, "New Guide for Emigrants" (Boston, 1837), ch iv; "Compendium Eleventh Census,"

i, p xl

[12:1] See post, for illustrations of the political accompaniments of changed industrial conditions.

[13:1] But Lewis and Clark were the first to explore the route from the Missouri to the Columbia

[14:1] "Narrative and Critical History of America," viii, p 10; Sparks' "Washington Works," ix, pp 303, 327;Logan, "History of Upper South Carolina," i; McDonald, "Life of Kenton," p 72; Cong Record, xxiii, p 57.[15:1] On the effect of the fur trade in opening the routes of migration, see the author's "Character and

Influence of the Indian Trade in Wisconsin."

[16:1] Lodge, "English Colonies," p 152 and citations; Logan, "Hist of Upper South Carolina," i, p 151.[16:2] Flint, "Recollections," p 9

[16:3] See Monette, "Mississippi Valley," i, p 344

[17:1] Coues', "Lewis and Clark's Expedition," i, pp 2, 253-259; Benton, in Cong Record, xxiii, p 57

[17:2] Hehn, Das Salz (Berlin, 1873).

[17:3] Col Records of N C., v, p 3

[17:4] Findley, "History of the Insurrection in the Four Western Counties of Pennsylvania in the Year 1794"(Philadelphia, 1796), p 35

[19:1] Hale, "Daniel Boone" (pamphlet)

[21:1] Compare Baily, "Tour in the Unsettled Parts of North America" (London, 1856), pp 217-219, where asimilar analysis is made for 1796 See also Collot, "Journey in North America" (Paris, 1826), p 109;

"Observations on the North American Land Company" (London, 1796), pp xv, 144; Logan, "History ofUpper South Carolina."

[22:1] "Spotswood Papers," in Collections of Virginia Historical Society, i, ii

[23:1] [Burke], "European Settlements" (1765 ed.), ii, p 200

[23:2] Everest, in "Wisconsin Historical Collections," xii, pp 7 ff

[23:3] Weston, "Documents connected with History of South Carolina," p 61

[25:1] See, for example, the speech of Clay, in the House of Representatives, January 30, 1824

[25:2] See the admirable monograph by Prof H B Adams, "Maryland's Influence on the Land Cessions"; andalso President Welling, in Papers American Historical Association, iii, p 411.

[26:1] Adams' Memoirs, ix, pp 247, 248

[28:1] Author's article in The Ægis (Madison, Wis.), November 4, 1892.

[29:1] Compare Roosevelt, "Thomas Benton," ch i

[30:1] Political Science Quarterly, ii, p 457 Compare Sumner, "Alexander Hamilton," chs ii-vii.

[31:1] Compare Wilson, "Division and Reunion," pp 15, 24

[32:1] On the relation of frontier conditions to Revolutionary taxation, see Sumner, Alexander Hamilton, ch.iii

[32:2] I have refrained from dwelling on the lawless characteristics of the frontier, because they are

sufficiently well known The gambler and desperado, the regulators of the Carolinas and the vigilantes ofCalifornia, are types of that line of scum that the waves of advancing civilization bore before them, and of thegrowth of spontaneous organs of authority where legal authority was absent Compare Barrows, "UnitedStates of Yesterday and To-morrow"; Shinn, "Mining Camps"; and Bancroft, "Popular Tribunals." The

humor, bravery, and rude strength, as well as the vices of the frontier in its worst aspect, have left traces onAmerican character, language, and literature, not soon to be effaced

[34:1] Debates in the Constitutional Convention, 1829-1830

[34:2] [McCrady] Eminent and Representative Men of the Carolinas, i, p 43; Calhoun's Works, i, pp

401-406

[35:1] Speech in the Senate, March 1, 1825; Register of Debates, i, 721

[36:1] Plea for the West (Cincinnati, 1835), pp 11 ff

[37:1] Colonial travelers agree in remarking on the phlegmatic characteristics of the colonists It has

frequently been asked how such a people could have developed that strained nervous energy now

characteristic of them Compare Sumner, "Alexander Hamilton," p 98, and Adams, "History of the UnitedStates," i, p 60; ix, pp 240, 241 The transition appears to become marked at the close of the War of 1812, aperiod when interest centered upon the development of the West, and the West was noted for restless energy.Grund, "Americans," ii, ch i

II

THE FIRST OFFICIAL FRONTIER OF THE MASSACHUSETTS BAY[39:1]

In the Significance of the "Frontier in American History," I took for my text the following announcement ofthe Superintendent of the Census of 1890:

Up to and including 1880 the country had a frontier of settlement but at present the unsettled area has been sobroken into by isolated bodies of settlement that there can hardly be said to be a frontier line In the discussion

of its extent, the westward movement, etc., it cannot therefore any longer have a place in the census reports

Two centuries prior to this announcement, in 1690, a committee of the General Court of Massachusettsrecommended the Court to order what shall be the frontier and to maintain a committee to settle garrisons onthe frontier with forty soldiers to each frontier town as a main guard.[39:2] In the two hundred years betweenthis official attempt to locate the Massachusetts frontier line, and the official announcement of the ending ofthe national frontier line, westward expansion was the most important single process in American history.The designation "frontier town" was not, however, a new one As early as 1645 inhabitants of Concord,Sudbury, and Dedham, "being inland townes & but thinly peopled," were forbidden to remove without

authority;[40:1] in 1669, certain towns had been the subject of legislation as "frontier towns;"[40:2] and in theperiod of King Philip's War there were various enactments regarding frontier towns.[40:3] In the session of1675-6 it had been proposed to build a fence of stockades or stone eight feet high from the Charles "where it

is navigable" to the Concord at Billerica and thence to the Merrimac and down the river to the Bay, "by whichmeanes that whole tract will [be] environed, for the security & safty (vnder God) of the people, their houses,goods & cattel; from the rage & fury of the enimy."[40:4] This project, however, of a kind of Roman Wall didnot appeal to the frontiersmen of the time It was a part of the antiquated ideas of defense which had beenillustrated by the impossible equipment of the heavily armored soldier of the early Puritan régime whosecorslets and head pieces, pikes, matchlocks, fourquettes and bandoleers, went out of use about the period ofKing Philip's War The fifty-seven postures provided in the approved manual of arms for loading and firingthe matchlock proved too great a handicap in the chase of the nimble savage In this era the frontier fighteradapted himself to a more open order, and lighter equipment suggested by the Indian warrior's practice.[40:5]The settler on the outskirts of Puritan civilization took up the task of bearing the brunt of attack and pushingforward the line of advance which year after year carried American settlements into the wilderness In

American thought and speech the term "frontier" has come to mean the edge of settlement, rather than, as inEurope, the political boundary By 1690 it was already evident that the frontier of settlement and the frontier

of military defense were coinciding As population advanced into the wilderness and thus successively

brought new exposed areas between the settlements on the one side and the Indians with their Europeanbackers on the other, the military frontier ceased to be thought of as the Atlantic coast, but rather as a movingline bounding the un-won wilderness It could not be a fortified boundary along the charter limits, for thoselimits extended to the South Sea, and conflicted with the bounds of sister colonies The thing to be defendedwas the outer edge of this expanding society, a changing frontier, one that needed designation and

re-statement with the changing location of the "West."

It will help to illustrate the significance of this new frontier when we see that Virginia at about the same time

as Massachusetts underwent a similar change and attempted to establish frontier towns, or "co-habitations," atthe "heads," that is the first falls, the vicinity of Richmond, Petersburg, etc., of her rivers.[41:1]

The Virginia system of "particular plantations" introduced along the James at the close of the London

Company's activity had furnished a type for the New England town In recompense, at this later day the NewEngland town may have furnished a model for Virginia's efforts to create frontier settlements by legislation

An act of March 12, 1694-5, by the General Court of Massachusetts enumerated the "Frontier Towns" whichthe inhabitants were forbidden to desert on pain of loss of their lands (if landholders) or of imprisonment (ifnot landholders), unless permission to remove were first obtained.[42:1] These eleven frontier towns includedWells, York, and Kittery on the eastern frontier, and Amesbury, Haverhill, Dunstable, Chelmsford, Groton,Lancaster, Marlborough,[42:2] and Deerfield In March, 1699-1700, the law was reënacted with the addition

of Brookfield, Mendon, and Woodstock, together with seven others, Salisbury, Andover,[42:3] Billerica,Hatfield, Hadley, Westfield, and Northampton, which, "tho' they be not frontiers as those towns first named,yet lye more open than many others to an attack of an Enemy."[42:4]

In the spring of 1704 the General Court of Connecticut, following closely the act of Massachusetts, named asher frontier towns, not to be deserted, Symsbury, Waterbury, Danbury, Colchester, Windham, Mansfield, and

Thus about the close of the seventeenth and the beginning of the eighteenth century there was an officiallydesignated frontier line for New England The line passing through these enumerated towns represents: (1) theoutskirts of settlement along the eastern coast and up the Merrimac and its tributaries, a region threatenedfrom the Indian country by way of the Winnepesaukee Lake; (2) the end of the ribbon of settlement up theConnecticut Valley, menaced by the Canadian Indians by way of the Lake Champlain and Winooski Riverroute to the Connecticut; (3) boundary towns which marked the edges of that inferior agricultural region,where the hard crystalline rocks furnished a later foundation for Shays' Rebellion, opposition to the adoption

of the Federal Constitution, and the abandoned farm; and (4) the isolated intervale of Brookfield which layintermediate between these frontiers

Besides this New England frontier there was a belt of settlement in New York, ascending the Hudson to whereAlbany and Schenectady served as outposts against the Five Nations, who menaced the Mohawk, and againstthe French and the Canadian Indians, who threatened the Hudson by way of Lake Champlain and LakeGeorge.[43:1] The sinister relations of leading citizens of Albany engaged in the fur trade with these Indians,even during time of war, tended to protect the Hudson River frontier at the expense of the frontier towns ofNew England

The common sequence of frontier types (fur trader, cattle-raising pioneer, small primitive farmer, and thefarmer engaged in intensive varied agriculture to produce a surplus for export) had appeared, though

confusedly, in New England The traders and their posts had prepared the way for the frontier towns,[44:1]and the cattle industry was most important to the early farmers.[44:2] But the stages succeeded rapidly andintermingled After King Philip's War, while Albany was still in the fur-trading stage, the New Englandfrontier towns were rather like mark colonies, military-agricultural outposts against the Indian enemy

The story of the border warfare between Canada and the frontier towns furnishes ample material for studyingfrontier life and institutions; but I shall not attempt to deal with the narrative of the wars The palisadedmeeting-house square, the fortified isolated garrison houses, the massacres and captivities are familiar features

of New England's history The Indian was a very real influence upon the mind and morals as well as upon theinstitutions of frontier New England The occasional instances of Puritans returning from captivity to visit thefrontier towns, Catholic in religion, painted and garbed as Indians and speaking the Indian tongue,[44:3] andthe half-breed children of captive Puritan mothers, tell a sensational part of the story; but in the normal, aswell as in such exceptional relations of the frontier townsmen to the Indians, there are clear evidences of thetransforming influence of the Indian frontier upon the Puritan type of English colonist

In 1703-4, for example, the General Court of Massachusetts ordered five hundred pairs of snowshoes and anequal number of moccasins for use in specified counties "lying Frontier next to the Wilderness."[45:1]

Connecticut in 1704 after referring to her frontier towns and garrisons ordered that "said company of Englishand Indians shall, from time to time at the discretion of their chief co[=m]ander, range the woods to indevourthe discovery of an approaching enemy, and in especiall manner from Westfield to Ousatunnuck.[45:2] And for the incouragement of our forces gone or going against the enemy, this Court will allow out of thepublick treasurie the su[=m]e of five pounds for every mans scalp of the enemy killed in this Colonie."[45:3]Massachusetts offered bounties for scalps, varying in amount according to whether the scalp was of men, orwomen and youths, and whether it was taken by regular forces under pay, volunteers in service, or volunteerswithout pay.[45:4] One of the most striking phases of frontier adjustment, was the proposal of the Rev.Solomon Stoddard of Northampton in the fall of 1703, urging the use of dogs "to hunt Indians as they doBears." The argument was that the dogs would catch many an Indian who would be too light of foot for thetownsmen, nor was it to be thought of as inhuman; for the Indians "act like wolves and are to be dealt with aswolves."[45:5] In fact Massachusetts passed an act in 1706 for the raising and increasing of dogs for the bettersecurity of the frontiers, and both Massachusetts and Connecticut in 1708 paid money from their treasury forthe trailing of dogs.[46:1]

Thus we come to familiar ground: the Massachusetts frontiersman like his western successor hated the

Indians; the "tawney serpents," of Cotton Mather's phrase, were to be hunted down and scalped in accord withlaw and, in at least one instance by the chaplain himself, a Harvard graduate, the hero of the Ballad of

Pigwacket, who

many Indians slew, And some of them he scalp'd when bullets round him flew.[46:2]

Within the area bounded by the frontier line, were the broken fragments of Indians defeated in the era of KingPhilip's War, restrained within reservations, drunken and degenerate survivors, among whom the missionariesworked with small results, a vexation to the border towns,[46:3] as they were in the case of later frontiers.Although, as has been said, the frontier towns had scattered garrison houses, and palisaded enclosures similar

to the neighborhood forts, or stations, of Kentucky in the Revolution, and of Indiana and Illinois in the War of

1812, one difference is particularly noteworthy In the case of frontiersmen who came down from

Pennsylvania into the Upland South along the eastern edge of the Alleghanies, as well as in the more obviouscase of the backwoodsmen of Kentucky and Tennessee, the frontier towns were too isolated from the mainsettled regions to allow much military protection by the older areas On the New England frontier, because itwas adjacent to the coast towns, this was not the case, and here, as in seventeenth century Virginia, greatactivity in protecting the frontier was evinced by the colonial authorities, and the frontier towns themselvescalled loudly for assistance This phase of frontier defense needs a special study, but at present it is sufficient

to recall that the colony sent garrisons to the frontier besides using the militia of the frontier towns; and that itemployed rangers to patrol from garrison to garrison.[47:1]

These were prototypes of the regular army post, and of rangers, dragoons, cavalry and mounted police whohave carried the remoter military frontier forward It is possible to trace this military cordon from New

England to the Carolinas early in the eighteenth century, still neighboring the coast; by 1840 it ran from FortSnelling on the upper Mississippi through various posts to the Sabine boundary of Texas, and so it passedforward until to-day it lies at the edge of Mexico and the Pacific Ocean

A few examples of frontier appeals for garrison aid will help to an understanding of the early form of themilitary frontier Wells asks, June 30, 1689:

1 That yo{r} Hon{rs} will please to send us speedily twenty Eight good brisk men that may be serviceable as

a guard to us whilest we get in our Harvest of Hay & Corn, (we being unable to Defend ourselves & to Do ourwork), & also to Persue & destroy the Enemy as occasion may require

2 That these men may be compleatly furnished with Arms, Amunition & Provision, and that upon the

Countrys account, it being a Generall War.[48:1]

Dunstable, "still weak and unable both to keep our Garrisons and to send out men to get hay for our Cattle;without doeing which wee cannot subsist," petitioned July 23, 1689, for twenty footmen for a month "to scoutabout the towne while wee get our hay." Otherwise, they say, they must be forced to leave.[48:2] Still moreindicative of this temper is the petition of Lancaster, March 11, 1675-6, to the Governor and Council: "AsGod has made you father over us so you will have a father's pity to us." They asked a guard of men and aid,without which they must leave.[48:3] Deerfield pled in 1678 to the General Court, "unlest you will be pleased

to take us (out of your fatherlike pitty) and Cherish us in yo{r} Bosomes we are like Suddainly to breathe outo{r} Last Breath."[48:4]

The perils of the time, the hardships of the frontier towns and readiness of this particular frontier to askappropriations for losses and wounds,[48:5] are abundantly illustrated in similar petitions from other towns.One is tempted at times to attribute the very frank self-pity and dependent attitude to a minister's phrasing, and

to the desire to secure remission of taxes, the latter a frontier trait more often associated with riot than withreligion in other regions

As an example of various petitions the following from Groton in 1704 is suggestive Here the minister's hand

is probably absent:

1 That wharas by the all dessposing hand of god who orders all things in infinit wisdom it is our portion toliue In such a part of the land which by reson of the enemy Is becom vary dangras as by wofull experiants wehaue falt both formarly and of late to our grat damidg & discoridgment and espashaly this last yere hauing lost

so many parsons som killed som captauated and som remoued and allso much corn & cattell and horses & haywharby wee ar gratly Impouerrished and brought uary low & in a uary pore capasity to subsist any longer Asthe barers her of can inform your honors

2 And more then all this our paster mr hobard is & hath been for aboue a yere uncapable of desspansing theordinances of god amongst us & we haue advised with th Raurant Elders of our nayboring churches and theyaduise to hyare another minister and to saport mr hobard and to make our adras to your honours we haue butlitel laft to pay our deus with being so pore and few In numbr ather to town or cuntrey & we being a franteretown & lyable to dangor there being no safty in going out nor coming in but for a long time we haue got ourbrad with the parel of our liues & allso broght uery low by so grat a charg of bilding garisons & fortefycations

by ordur of athorety & thar is saural of our Inhabitants ramoued out of town & others are prouiding to remoue,axcapt somthing be don for our Incoridgment for we are so few & so por that we canot pay two ministorsnathar ar we wiling to liue without any we spand so much time in waching and warding that we can doe butlitel els & truly we haue liued allmost 2 yers more like soulders then other wise & accapt your honars can findout some bater way for our safty and support we cannot uphold as a town ather by remitting our tax or towalow pay for building the sauarall forts alowed and ordred by athority or alls to alow the one half of our ownInhabitants to be under pay or to grant liberty for our remufe Into our naiburing towns to tak cer for oursalfsall which if your honors shall se meet to grant you will hereby gratly incoridg your humble pateceners toconflect with th many trubls we are ensadant unto.[50:1]

Forced together into houses for protection, getting in their crops at the peril of their lives, the frontier

townsmen felt it a hardship to contribute also to the taxes of the province while they helped to protect theexposed frontier In addition there were grievances of absentee proprietors who paid no town taxes and yetprofited by the exertions of the frontiersmen; of that I shall speak later

If we were to trust to these petitions asking favors from the government of the colony, we might impute tothese early frontiersmen a degree of submission to authority unlike that of other frontiersmen,[51:1] andindeed not wholly warranted by the facts Reading carefully, we find that, however prudently phrased, thepetitions are in fact complaints against taxation; demands for expenditures by the colony in their behalf;criticisms of absentee proprietors; intimations that they may be forced to abandon the frontier position soessential to the defense of the settled eastern country

The spirit of military insubordination characteristic of the frontier is evident in the accounts of these towns,such as Pynchon's in 1694, complaining of the decay of the fortifications at Hatfield, Hadley, and Springfield:

"the people a little wilful Inclined to doe when and how they please or not at all."[51:2] Saltonstall writesfrom Haverhill about the same time regarding his ill success in recruiting: "I will never plead for an Haverhillman more," and he begs that some meet person be sent "to tell us what we should, may or must do I havelaboured in vain: some go this, and that, and the other way at pleasure, and do what they list."[51:3] This has afamiliar ring to the student of the frontier

As in the case of the later frontier also, the existence of a common danger on the borders of settlement tended

to consolidate not only the towns of Massachusetts into united action for defense, but also the various

colonies The frontier was an incentive to sectional combination then as it was to nationalism afterward When

in 1692 Connecticut sent soldiers from her own colony to aid the Massachusetts towns on the ConnecticutRiver,[52:1] she showed a realization that the Deerfield people, who were "in a sense in the enemy's Mouthalmost," as Pynchon wrote, constituted her own frontier[52:2] and that the facts of geography were more

compelling than arbitrary colonial boundaries Thereby she also took a step that helped to break down

provincial antagonisms When in 1689 Massachusetts and Connecticut sent agents to Albany to join with NewYork in making presents to the Indians of that colony in order to engage their aid against the French,[52:3]they recognized (as their leaders put it) that Albany was "the hinge" of the frontier in this exposed quarter Inthanking Connecticut for the assistance furnished in 1690 Livingston said: "I hope your honors do not lookupon Albany as Albany, but as the frontier of your honor's Colony and of all their Majesties countries."[52:4]The very essence of the American frontier is that it is the graphic line which records the expansive energies ofthe people behind it, and which by the law of its own being continually draws that advance after it to newconquests This is one of the most significant things about New England's frontier in these years That longblood-stained line of the eastern frontier which skirted the Maine coast was of great importance, for it

imparted a western tone to the life and characteristics of the Maine people which endures to this day, and itwas one line of advance for New England toward the mouth of the St Lawrence, leading again and again todiplomatic negotiations with the powers that held that river The line of the towns that occupied the waters ofthe Merrimac, tempted the province continually into the wilderness of New Hampshire The Connecticut rivertowns pressed steadily up that stream, along its tributaries into the Hoosatonic valleys, and into the valleysbetween the Green Mountains of Vermont By the end of 1723, the General Court of Massachusetts enacted,

That It will be of Great Service to all the Western Frontiers, both in this and the Neighboring Government ofConn., to Build a Block House above Northfield, in the most convenient Place on the Lands called the

Equivilant Lands, & to post in it forty Able Men, English & Western Indians, to be employed in Scouting at aGood Distance up Conn River, West River, Otter Creek, and sometimes Eastwardly above the Great

Manadnuck, for the Discovery of the Enemy Coming towards anny of the frontier Towns.[53:1]

The "frontier Towns" were preparing to swarm It was not long before Fort Dummer replaced "the BlockHouse," and the Berkshires and Vermont became new frontiers

The Hudson River likewise was recognized as another line of advance pointing the way to Lake Champlainand Montreal, calling out demands that protection should be secured by means of an aggressive advance of the

frontier Canada delenda est became the rallying cry in New England as well as in New York, and combined

diplomatic pressure and military expeditions followed in the French and Indian wars and in the Revolution, inwhich the children of the Connecticut and Massachusetts frontier towns, acclimated to Indian fighting,

followed Ethan Allen and his fellows to the north.[54:1]

Having touched upon some of the military and expansive tendencies of this first official frontier, let us nextturn to its social, economic, and political aspects How far was this first frontier a field for the investment ofeastern capital and for political control by it? Were there evidences of antagonism between the frontier and thesettled, property-holding classes of the coast? Restless democracy, resentfulness over taxation and control,and recriminations between the Western pioneer and the Eastern capitalist, have been characteristic features ofother frontiers: were similar phenomena in evidence here? Did "Populistic" tendencies appear in this frontier,and were there grievances which explained these tendencies?[54:2]

In such colonies as New York and Virginia the land grants were often made to members of the Council andtheir influential friends, even when there were actual settlers already on the grants In the case of New

England the land system is usually so described as to give the impression that it was based on a

non-commercial policy, creating new Puritan towns by free grants of land made in advance to approvedsettlers This description does not completely fit the case That there was an economic interest on the part ofabsentee proprietors, and that men of political influence with the government were often among the granteesseems also to be true Melville Egleston states the case thus: "The court was careful not to authorize newplantations unless they were to be in a measure under the influence of men in whom confidence could beplaced, and commonly acted upon their application."[55:1] The frontier, as we shall observe later, was notalways disposed to see the practice in so favorable a light

New towns seem to have been the result in some cases of the aggregation of settlers upon and about a largeprivate grant; more often they resulted from settlers in older towns, where the town limits were extensive,spreading out to the good lands of the outskirts, beyond easy access to the meeting-house, and then askingrecognition as a separate town In some cases they may have been due to squatting on unassigned lands, orpurchasing the Indian title and then asking confirmation In others grants were made in advance of settlement.

As early as 1636 the General Court had ordered that none go to new plantations without leave of a majority ofthe magistrates.[55:2] This made the legal situation clear, but it would be dangerous to conclude that it

represented the actual situation In any case there would be a necessity for the settlers finally to secure theassent of the Court This could be facilitated by a grant to leading men having political influence with themagistrates The complaints of absentee proprietors which find expression in the frontier petitions of theseventeenth and early eighteenth century seems to indicate that this happened In the succeeding years of theeighteenth century the grants to leading men and the economic and political motives in the grants are

increasingly evident This whole topic should be made the subject of special study What is here offered ismerely suggestive of a problem.[56:1]

The frontier settlers criticized the absentee proprietors, who profited by the pioneers' expenditure of labor andblood upon their farms, while they themselves enjoyed security in an eastern town A few examples fromtown historians will illustrate this Among the towns of the Merrimac Valley, Salisbury was planted on thebasis of a grant to a dozen proprietors including such men as Mr Bradstreet and the younger Dudley, only two

of whom actually lived and died in Salisbury.[56:2] Amesbury was set off from Salisbury by division, onehalf of the signers of the agreement signing by mark Haverhill was first seated in 1641, following petitionsfrom Mr Ward, the Ipswich minister, his son-in-law, Giles Firmin, and others Firmin's letter to GovernorWinthrop, in 1640, complains that Ipswich had given him his ground in that town on condition that he shouldstay in the town three years or else he could not sell it, "whenas others have no business but range from place

to place on purpose to live upon the countrey."[56:3]

Dunstable's large grant was brought about by a combination of leading men who had received grants after thesurvey of 1652; among such grants was one to the Ancient and Honorable Artillery Company and another toThomas Brattle of Boston Apparently it was settled chiefly by others than the original grantees.[57:1] Grotonvoted in 1685 to sue the "non-Residenc" to assist in paying the rate, and in 1679 the General Court had

ordered non-residents having land at Groton to pay rates for their lands as residents did.[57:2] Lancaster(Nashaway) was granted to proprietors including various craftsmen in iron, indicating, perhaps, an expectation

of iron works, and few of the original proprietors actually settled in the town.[57:3] The grant of 1653-4 wasmade by the Court after reciting: (1) that it had ordered in 1647 that the "ordering and disposeing of thePlantation at Nashaway is wholly in the Courts power"; (2) "Considering that there is allredy at Nashawayabout nine Families and that severall both freemen and others intend to goe and setle there, some whereof arenamed in this Petition," etc

Mendon, begun in 1660 by Braintree people, is a particularly significant example In 1681 the inhabitantspetitioned that while they are not "of the number of those who dwell in their ceiled houses & yet say the time

is not come that the Lord's house should be built," yet they have gone outside of their strength "unless otherswho are proprietors as well as ourselves, (the price of whose lands is much raysed by our carrying on publicwork & will be nothing worth if we are forced to quit the place) doo beare an equal share in Town chargeswith us Those who are not yet come up to us are a great and far yet abler part of our Proprietors "[57:4] In

1684 the selectmen inform the General Court that one half of the proprietors, two only excepted, are dwelling

in other places, "Our proprietors, abroad," say they, "object that they see no reason why they should pay asmuch for thayer lands as we do for our Land and stock, which we answer that if their be not a noff of reasonfor it, we are sure there is more than enough of necessity to supply that is wanting in reason."[58:1] This is theauthentic voice of the frontier

Deerfield furnishes another type, inasmuch as a considerable part of its land was first held by Dedham, to

which the grant was made as a recompense for the location of the Natick Indian reservation Dedham shares inthe town often fell into the hands of speculators, and Sheldon, the careful historian of Deerfield, declares thatnot a single Dedham man became a permanent resident of the grant In 1678 Deerfield petitioned the GeneralCourt as follows:

You may be pleased to know that the very principle & best of the land; the best for soile; the best for

situation; as lying in y{e} centre & midle of the town: & as to quantity, nere half, belongs unto eight or 9proprietors each and every of which, are never like to come to a settlement amongst us, which we have

formerly found grievous & doe Judge for the future will be found intollerable if not altered O{r} minister,

Mr Mather & we ourselves are much discouraged as judging the Plantation will be spoiled if thes

proprietors may not be begged, or will not be bought up on very easy terms outt of their Right Butt as long

as the maine of the plantation Lies in men's hands that can't improve it themselves, neither are ever like to puttsuch tenants on to it as shall be likely to advance the good of y{e} place in Civill or sacred Respects; he,ourselves, and all others that think of going to it, are much discouraged.[59:1]

Woodstock, later a Connecticut town, was settled under a grant in the Nipmuc country made to the town ofRoxbury The settlers, who located their farms near the trading post about which the Indians still collected,were called the "go-ers," while the "stayers" were those who remained in Roxbury, and retained half of thenew grant; but it should be added that they paid the go-ers a sum of money to facilitate the settlement

This absentee proprietorship and the commercial attitude toward the lands of new towns became more evident

in succeeding years of the eighteenth century Leicester, for example, was confirmed by the General Court in

1713 The twenty shares were divided among twenty-two proprietors, including Jeremiah Dummer, PaulDudley (Attorney-General), William Dudley (like Paul a son of the Governor, Joseph Dudley), ThomasHutchinson (father of the later Governor), John Clark (the political leader), and Samuel Sewall (son of theChief Justice) These were all men of influence, and none of the proprietors became inhabitants of Leicester.The proprietors tried to induce the fifty families, whose settlement was one of the conditions on which thegrant was made, to occupy the eastern half of the township reserving the rest as their absolute property.[59:2]The author of a currency tract, in 1716, entitled "Some Considerations upon the Several Sorts of Banks,"remarks that formerly, when land was easy to be obtained, good men came over as indentured servants; butnow, he says, they are runaways, thieves, and disorderly persons The remedy for this, in his opinion, would

be to induce servants to come over by offering them homes when the terms of indenture should expire.[60:1]

He therefore advocates that townships should be laid out four or five miles square in which grants of fifty orsixty acres could be made to servants.[60:2] Concern over the increase of negro slaves in Massachusettsseems to have been the reason for this proposal It indicates that the current practice in disposing of the landsdid not provide for the poorer people

But Massachusetts did not follow this suggestion of a homestead policy On the contrary, the desire to locatetowns to create continuous lines of settlement along the roads between the disconnected frontiers and toprotect boundary claims by granting tiers of towns in the disputed tract, as well, no doubt, as pressure fromfinancial interests, led the General Court between 1715 and 1762 to dispose of the remaining public domain ofMassachusetts under conditions that made speculation and colonization by capitalists important factors.[60:3]When in 1762 Massachusetts sold a group of townships in the Berkshires to the highest bidders (by wholetownships),[60:4] the transfer from the social-religious to the economic conception was complete, and thefrontier was deeply influenced by the change to "land mongering."

In one respect, however, there was an increasing recognition of the religious and social element in settling thefrontier, due in part, no doubt, to a desire to provide for the preservation of eastern ideals and influences in theWest Provisions for reserving lands within the granted townships for the support of an approved minister, andfor schools, appear in the seventeenth century and become a common feature of the grants for frontier towns

in the eighteenth.[61:1] This practice with respect to the New England frontier became the foundation for the

system of grants of land from the public domain for the support of common schools and state universities bythe federal government from its beginning, and has been profoundly influential in later Western States.

Another ground for discontent over land questions was furnished by the system of granting lands within thetown by the commoners The principle which in many, if not all, cases guided the proprietors in distributingthe town lots is familiar and is well stated in the Lancaster town records (1653):

And, whereas Lotts are Now Laid out for the most part Equally to Rich and poore, Partly to keepe the Townefrom Scatering to farr, and partly out of Charitie and Respect to men of meaner estate, yet that Equallitie(which is the rule of God) may be observed, we Covenant and Agree, That in a second Devition and so

through all other Devitions of Land the mater shall be drawne as neere to equallitie according to mens estates

as wee are able to doe, That he which hath now more then his estate Deserveth in home Lotts and entervaleLotts shall haue so much Less: and he that hath Less then his estate Deserveth shall haue so much more.[62:1]This peculiar doctrine of "equality" had early in the history of the colony created discontents Winthropexplained the principle which governed himself and his colleagues in the case of the Boston committee of

1634 by saying that their divisions were arranged "partly to prevent the neglect of trades." This is a pregnantidea; it underlay much of the later opposition of New England as a manufacturing section to the free

homestead or cheap land policy, demanded by the West and by the labor party, in the national public domain.The migration of labor to free lands meant that higher wages must be paid to those who remained The use ofthe town lands by the established classes to promote an approved form of society naturally must have hadsome effect on migration

But a more effective source of disputes was with respect to the relation of the town proprietors to the publicdomain of the town in contrast with the non-proprietors as a class The need of keeping the town meeting andthe proprietors' meeting separate in the old towns in earlier years was not so great as it was when the

new-comers became numerous In an increasing degree these new-comers were either not granted lands at all,

or were not admitted to the body of proprietors with rights in the possession of the undivided town lands.Contentions on the part of the town meeting that it had the right of dealing with the town lands occasionallyappear, significantly, in the frontier towns of Haverhill, Massachusetts, Simsbury, Connecticut, and in thetowns of the Connecticut Valley.[63:1] Jonathan Edwards, in 1751, declared that there had been in

Northampton for forty or fifty years "two parties somewhat like the court and country parties of England .The first party embraced the great proprietors of land, and the parties concerned about land and other

matters."[63:2] The tendency to divide up the common lands among the proprietors in individual possessiondid not become marked until the eighteenth century; but the exclusion of some from possession of the townlands and the "equality" in allotment favoring men with already large estates must have attracted ambitiousmen who were not of the favored class to join in the movement to new towns Religious dissensions wouldcombine to make frontier society as it formed early in the eighteenth century more and more democratic,dissatisfied with the existing order, and less respectful of authority We shall not understand the relativeradicalism of parts of the Berkshires, Vermont and interior New Hampshire without enquiry into the degree inwhich the control over the lands by a proprietary monopoly affected the men who settled on the frontier.The final aspect of this frontier to be examined, is the attitude of the conservatives of the older sectionstowards this movement of westward advance President Dwight in the era of the War of 1812 was very critical

of the "foresters," but saw in such a movement a safety valve to the institutions of New England by allowingthe escape of the explosive advocates of "Innovation."[63:3]

Cotton Mather is perhaps not a typical representative of the conservative sentiment at the close of the

seventeenth century, but his writings may partly reflect the attitude of Boston Bay toward New England's firstWestern frontier Writing in 1694 of "Wonderful Passages which have Occurred, First in the Protections andthen in the Afflictions of New England," he says:

One while the Enclosing of Commons hath made Neighbours, that should have been like Sheep, to Bite and

devour one another Again, Do our Old People, any of them Go Out from the Institutions of God,

Swarming into New Settlements, where they and their Untaught Families are like to Perish for Lack of

Vision? They that have done so, heretofore, have to their Cost found, that they were got unto the Wrong side

of the Hedge, in their doing so Think, here Should this be done any more? We read of Balaam, in Num 22,

23 He was to his Damage, driven to the Wall, when he would needs make an unlawful Salley forth after the

Gain of this World Why, when men, for the Sake of Earthly Gain, would be going out into the Warm Sun,

they drive Through the Wall, and the Angel of the Lord becomes their Enemy.

In his essay on "Frontiers Well-Defended" (1707) Mather assures the pioneers that they "dwell in a

Hatsarmaneth," a place of "tawney serpents," are "inhabitants of the Valley of Achor," and are "the Poor ofthis World." There may be significance in his assertion: "It is remarkable to see that when the Unchurched

Villages, have been so many of them, utterly broken up, in the War, that has been upon us, those that have had

Churches regularly formed in them, have generally been under a more sensible Protection of Heaven." "Sirs,"

he says, "a Church-State well form'd may fortify you wonderfully!" He recommends abstention from profane

swearing, furious cursing, Sabbath breaking, unchastity, dishonesty, robbing of God by defrauding the

ministers of their dues, drunkenness, and revels and he reminds them that even the Indians have family

prayers! Like his successors who solicited missionary contributions for the salvation of the frontier in theMississippi Valley during the forties of the nineteenth century, this early spokesman for New England laidstress upon teaching anti-popery, particularly in view of the captivity that might await them

In summing up, we find many of the traits of later frontiers in this early prototype, the Massachusetts frontier

It lies at the edge of the Indian country and tends to advance It calls out militant qualities and reveals theimprint of wilderness conditions upon the psychology and morals as well as upon the institutions of thepeople It demands common defense and thus becomes a factor for consolidation It is built on the basis of apreliminary fur trade, and is settled by the combined and sometimes antagonistic forces of eastern men ofproperty (the absentee proprietors) and the democratic pioneers The East attempted to regulate and control it.Individualistic and democratic tendencies were emphasized both by the wilderness conditions and, probably,

by the prior contentions between the proprietors and non-proprietors of the towns from which settlers moved

to the frontier Removal away from the control of the customary usages of the older communities and from theconservative influence of the body of the clergy, increased the innovating tendency Finally the towns wereregarded by at least one prominent representative of the established order in the East, as an undesirable placefor the re-location of the pillars of society The temptation to look upon the frontier as a field for investmentwas viewed by the clergy as a danger to the "institutions of God." The frontier was "the Wrong side of theHedge."

But to this "wrong side of the hedge" New England men continued to migrate The frontier towns of 1695were hardly more than suburbs of Boston The frontier of a century later included New England's colonies inVermont, Western New York, the Wyoming Valley, the Connecticut Reserve, and the Ohio Company'ssettlement in the Old Northwest Territory By the time of the Civil War the frontier towns of New Englandhad occupied the great prairie zone of the Middle West and were even planted in Mormon Utah and in parts ofthe Pacific Coast New England's sons had become the organizers of a Greater New England in the West,captains of industry, political leaders, founders of educational systems, and prophets of religion, in a sectionthat was to influence the ideals and shape the destiny of the nation in ways to which the eyes of men likeCotton Mather were sealed.[66:1]

[40:1] Massachusetts Colony Records, ii, p 122.

[40:2] Ibid., vol iv, pt ii, p 439; Massachusetts Archives, cvii, pp 160-161.

[40:3] See, for example, Massachusetts Colony Records, v, 79; Green, "Groton During the Indian Wars," p.39; L K Mathews, "Expansion of New England," p 58

[40:4] Massachusetts Archives, lxviii, pp 174-176

[40:5] Osgood, "American Colonies in the Seventeenth Century," i, p 501, and citations: cf Publications ofthis Society, xii, pp 38-39

[41:1] Hening, "Statutes at Large," iii, p 204: cf 1 Massachusetts Historical Collections, v, p 129, for

influence of the example of the New England town On Virginia frontier conditions see Alvord and Bidgood,

"First Explorations of the Trans-Allegheny Region," pp 23-34, 93-95 P A Bruce, "Institutional History of

Virginia," ii, p 97, discusses frontier defense in the seventeenth century [See chapter iii, post.]

[42:1] Massachusetts Archives, lxx, 240; Massachusetts Province Laws, i, pp 194, 293

[42:2] In a petition (read March 3, 1692-3) of settlers "in Sundry Farms granted in those Remote LandsScituate and Lyeing between Sudbury, Concord, Marlbury, Natick and Sherburne & Westerly is the

Wilderness," the petitioners ask easement of taxes and extension into the Natick region in order to have means

to provide for the worship of God, and say:

"Wee are not Ignorant that by reason of the present Distressed Condition of those that dwell in these FrontierTowns, divers are meditating to remove themselves into such places where they have not hitherto been

conserned in the present Warr and desolation thereby made, as also that thereby they may be freed from thatgreat burthen of public taxes necessarily accruing thereby, Some haveing already removed themselves Buttknowing for our parts that wee cannot run from the hand of a Jealous God, doe account it our duty to takesuch Measures as may inable us to the performance of that duty wee owe to God, the King, & our Familyes"(Massachusetts Archives, cxiii, p 1)

[42:3] In a petition of 1658 Andover speaks of itself as "a remote upland plantation" (Massachusetts Archives,cxii, p 99)

[42:4] Massachusetts Province Laws, i, p 402

[43:1] Convenient maps of settlement, 1660-1700, are in E Channing, "History of the United States," i, pp.510-511, ii, end; Avery, "History of the United States and its People," ii, p 398 A useful contemporaneousmap for conditions at the close of King Philip's War is Hubbard's map of New England in his "Narrative"published in Boston, 1677 See also L K Mathews, "Expansion of New England," pp 56-57, 70

[44:1] Weeden, "Economic and Social History of New England," pp 90, 95, 129-132; F J Turner, "IndianTrade in Wisconsin," p 13; McIlwain, "Wraxall's Abridgement," introduction; the town histories abound inevidence of the significance of the early Indian traders' posts, transition to Indian land cessions, and then totown grants

[44:2] Weeden, loc cit., pp 64-67; M Egleston, "New England Land System," pp 31-32; Sheldon,

"Deerfield," i, pp 37, 206, 267-268; Connecticut Colonial Records, vii, p 111, illustrations of cattle brands in1727

[44:3] Hutchinson, "History" (1795), ii, p 129, note, relates such a case of a Groton man; see also Parkman,

"Half-Century," vol i, ch iv, citing Maurault, "Histoire des Abenakis," p 377.

[45:1] Massachusetts Archives, lxxi, pp 4, 84, 85, 87, 88

[45:2] Hoosatonic

[45:3] Connecticut Records, iv, pp 463, 464

[45:4] Massachusetts Colony Records, v, p 72; Massachusetts Province Laws, i, pp 176, 211, 292, 558, 594,600; Massachusetts Archives, lxxi, pp 7, 89, 102 Cf Publications of this Society, vii, 275-278

[45:5] Sheldon, "Deerfield," i, p 290

[46:1] Judd, "Hadley," p 272; 4 Massachusetts Historical Collections, ii, p 235

[46:2] Farmer and Moore, "Collections," iii, p 64 The frontier woman of the farther west found no moreextreme representative than Hannah Dustan of Haverhill, with her trophy of ten scalps, for which she received

a bounty of £50 (Parkman, "Frontenac," 1898, p 407, note)

[46:3] For illustrations of resentment against those who protected the Christian Indians, see F W Gookin,

"Daniel Gookin," pp 145-155

[47:1] For example, Massachusetts Archives, lxx, p 261; Bailey, "Andover," p 179; Metcalf, "Annals ofMendon," p 63; Proceedings Massachusetts Historical Society, xliii, pp 504-519 Parkman, "Frontenac"(Boston, 1898), p 390, and "Half-Century of Conflict" (Boston, 1898), i, p 55, sketches the frontier defense.[48:1] Massachusetts Archives, cvii, p 155

[48:2] Ibid., cvii, p 230; cf 230 a.

[48:3] Massachusetts Archives, lxviii, p 156

[48:4] Sheldon, "Deerfield," i, p 189

[48:5] Massachusetts Archives, lxxi, 46-48, 131, 134, 135 et passim.

[50:1] Massachusetts Archives, lxxi, p 107: cf Metcalf, "Mendon," p 130; Sheldon, "Deerfield," i, p 288.The frontier of Virginia in 1755 and 1774 showed similar conditions: see, for example, the citations to

Washington's Writings in Thwaites, "France in America," pp 193-195; and frontier letters in Thwaites and

Kellogg, "Dunmore's War," pp 227, 228 et passim The following petition to Governor Gooch of Virginia,

dated July 30, 1742, affords a basis for comparison with a Scotch-Irish frontier:

We your pettionours humbly sheweth that we your Honours Loly and Dutifull Subganckes hath ventred ourLives & all that we have In settling ye back parts of Virginia which was a veri Great Hassirt & Dengrous, for

it is the Hathins [heathens] Road to ware, which has proved hortfull to severil of ous that were ye first settlers

of these back woods & wee your Honibill pettionors some time a goo petitioned your Honnour for to haveCommisioned men amungst ous which we your Honnours most Duttifull subjects thought properist men &men that had Hart and Curidg to hed us yn time of [war] & to defend your Contray & your poor SogbacksIntrist from ye voilince of ye Haithen But yet agine we Humbly persume to poot your Honnour yn mind ofour Great want of them in hopes that your Honner will Grant a Captins' Commission to John McDowell, withfollring ofishers, and your Honnours' Complyence in this will be Great settisfiction to your most Duttifull andHumbil pettioners and we as in Duty bond shall Ever pray (Calendar of Virginia State Papers, i, p 235)

[51:1] But there is a note of deference in Southern frontier petitions to the Continental Congress to be

discounted, however, by the remoteness of that body See F J Turner, "Western State-Making in the

Revolutionary Era" (American Historical Review, i, pp 70, 251) The demand for remission of taxes is a

common feature of the petitions there quoted

[51:2] Proceedings Massachusetts Historical Society, xliii, pp 506 ff

[51:3] Ibid., xliii, p 518.

[52:1] Connecticut Colonial Records, iv, p 67

[52:2] In a petition of February 22, 1693-4, Deerfield calls itself the "most Utmost Frontere Town in theCounty of West Hampshire" (Massachusetts Archives, cxiii, p 57 a)

is in the army, just like brothers; and I will go with you into the woods to scout; and my men and your menwill sleep together, and eat and drink together, and fight Regulars, because they first killed our brothers"(American Archives, 4th Series, ii, p 714)

[54:2] Compare A McF Davis, "The Shays Rebellion a Political Aftermath" (Proceedings American

Antiquarian Society, xxi, pp 58, 62, 75-79)

[55:1] "Land System of the New England Colonies," p 30

[55:2] Massachusetts Colony Records, i, p 167

[56:1] Compare Weeden, "Economic and Social History of New England," i, pp 270-271; Gookin, "DanielGookin," pp 106-161; and the histories of Worcester for illustrations of how the various factors noted could

be combined in a single town

[56:2] F Merrill, "Amesbury," pp 5, 50

[56:3] B L Mirick, "Haverhill," pp 9, 10

[57:1] Green, "Early Records of Groton," pp 49, 70, 90

[57:2] Ibid.

[57:3] Worcester County History, i, pp 2, 3

[57:4] J G Metcalf, "Annals of Mendon," p 85

[58:1] P 96 Compare the Kentucky petition of 1780 given in Roosevelt, "Winning of the West," ii, p 398,

and the letter from that frontier cited in Turner, "Western State-Making" (American Historical Review, i, p 262), attacking the Virginia "Nabobs," who hold absentee land titles "Let the great men," say they, "whom

the land belongs to come and defend it."

[60:4] J G Holland, "Western Massachusetts," p 197

[61:1] Jos Schafer, "Origin of the System of Land Grants for Education," pp 25-33

[62:1] H D Hurd (ed.), "History of Worcester County," i, p 6 The italics are mine

[63:1] Egleston, "Land System of the New England Colonies," pp 39-41

[63:2] Ibid., p 41.

[63:3] T Dwight, "Travels" (1821), ii, pp 459-463

[66:1] [See F J Turner, "Greater New England in the Middle of the Nineteenth Century," in AmericanAntiquarian Society "Proceedings," 1920.]

III

THE OLD WEST[67:1]

It is not the oldest West with which this chapter deals The oldest West was the Atlantic coast Roughlyspeaking, it took a century of Indian fighting and forest felling for the colonial settlements to expand into theinterior to a distance of about a hundred miles from the coast Indeed, some stretches were hardly touched inthat period This conquest of the nearest wilderness in the course of the seventeenth century and in the earlyyears of the eighteenth, gave control of the maritime section of the nation and made way for the new

movement of westward expansion which I propose to discuss

In his "Winning of the West," Roosevelt dealt chiefly with the region beyond the Alleghanies, and with theperiod of the later eighteenth century, although he prefaced his account with an excellent chapter describingthe backwoodsmen of the Alleghanies and their social conditions from 1769 to 1774 It is important to notice,however, that he is concerned with a backwoods society already formed; that he ignores the New Englandfrontier and its part in the winning of the West, and does not recognize that there was a West to be wonbetween New England and the Great Lakes In short, he is interested in the winning of the West beyond the

Alleghanies by the southern half of the frontier folk.

There is, then, a western area intermediate between the coastal colonial settlements of the seventeenth centuryand the trans-Alleghany settlements of the latter portion of the eighteenth century This section I propose toisolate and discuss under the name of the Old West, and in the period from about 1676 to 1763 It includes theback country of New England, the Mohawk Valley, the Great Valley of Pennsylvania, the Shenandoah Valley,and the Piedmont that is, the interior or upland portion of the South, lying between the Alleghanies and thehead of navigation of the Atlantic rivers marked by the "fall line."[68:1]

In this region, and in these years, are to be found the beginnings of much that is characteristic in Westernsociety, for the Atlantic coast was in such close touch with Europe that its frontier experience was sooncounteracted, and it developed along other lines It is unfortunate that the colonial back country appealed solong to historians solely in connection with the colonial wars, for the development of its society, its

institutions and mental attitude all need study Its history has been dealt with in separate fragments, by states,

or towns, or in discussions of special phases, such as German and Scotch-Irish immigration The Old West as

a whole can be appreciated only by obliterating the state boundaries which conceal its unity, by correlating thespecial and fragmentary studies, and by filling the gaps in the material for understanding the formation of itssociety The present paper is rather a reconnaissance than a conquest of the field, a program for study of theOld West rather than an exposition of it

The end of the period proposed may be placed about 1763, and the beginning between 1676 and 1700 Thetermination of the period is marked by the Peace of Paris in 1763, and the royal proclamation of that yearforbidding settlement beyond the Alleghanies By this time the settlement of the Old West was fairly

accomplished, and new advances were soon made into the "Western Waters" beyond the mountains and intothe interior of Vermont and New Hampshire The isolation of the transmontane settlements, and the specialconditions and doctrines of the Revolutionary era during which they were formed, make a natural distinctionbetween the period of which I am to speak and the later extension of the West

The beginning of the period is necessarily an indeterminate date, owing to the different times of colonizing thecoastal areas which served as bases of operations in the westward advance The most active movements intothe Old West occurred after 1730 But in 1676 New England, having closed the exhausting struggle with theIndians, known as King Philip's War, could regard her established settlements as secure, and go on to

complete her possession of the interior This she did in the midst of conflicts with the exterior Indian tribeswhich invaded her frontiers from New York and Canada during the French and Indian wars from 1690 to

1760, and under frontier conditions different from the conditions of the earlier Puritan colonization In 1676,Virginia was passing through Indian fighting keenest along the fall line, where the frontier lay and alsoexperiencing a social revolt which resulted in the defeat of the democratic forces that sought to stay theprogress of aristocratic control in the colony.[70:1] The date marks the end of the period when the Virginiatidewater could itself be regarded as a frontier region, and consequently the beginning of a more specialinterest in the interior

Let us first examine the northern part of the movement into the back country The expansion of New Englandinto the vacant spaces of its own section, in the period we have chosen for discussion, resulted in the

formation of an interior society which contrasted in many ways with that of the coast, and which has a specialsignificance in Western history, in that it was this interior New England people who settled the Greater NewEngland in central and western New York, the Wyoming Valley, the Connecticut Reserve of Ohio, and much

of the prairie areas of the Old Northwest It is important to realize that the Old West included interior NewEngland

The situation in New England at the close of the seventeenth century is indicated by the Massachusetts act of

1694 enumerating eleven towns, then on the frontier and exposed to raids, none of which might be voluntarilydeserted without leave of the governor and council, on penalty of loss of their freeholds by the landowners, or

fine of other inhabitants.[70:2]

Thus these frontier settlers were made substantially garrisons, or "mark colonies." Crowded into the palisades

of the town, and obliged in spite of their poverty to bear the brunt of Indian attack, their hardships are

illustrated in the manly but pathetic letters of Deerfield's minister, Mr Williams,[70:3] in 1704 Parkmansuccinctly describes the general conditions in these words:[70:4]

The exposed frontier of New England was between two and three hundred miles long, and consisted of farmsand hamlets loosely scattered through an almost impervious forest Even in so-called villages the houseswere far apart, because, except on the seashore, the people lived by farming Such as were able to do sofenced their dwellings with palisades, or built them of solid timber, with loopholes, a projecting upper storylike a block house, and sometimes a flanker at one or more of the corners In the more considerable

settlements the largest of these fortified houses was occupied in time of danger by armed men and served as aplace of refuge for the neighbors

Into these places, in days of alarm, were crowded the outlying settlers, just as was the case in later times in theKentucky "stations."

In spite of such frontier conditions, the outlying towns continued to multiply Between 1720 and the middle ofthe century, settlement crept up the Housatonic and its lateral valley into the Berkshires About 1720

Litchfield was established; in 1725, Sheffield; in 1730, Great Barrington; and in 1735 a road was cut andtowns soon established between Westfield and these Housatonic settlements, thus uniting them with the olderextensions along the Connecticut and its tributaries

In this period, scattered and sometimes unwelcome Scotch-Irish settlements were established, such as that atLondonderry, New Hampshire, and in the Berkshires, as well as in the region won in King Philip's War fromthe Nipmucks, whither there came also Huguenots.[72:1]

In King George's War, the Connecticut River settlers found their frontier protection in such rude stockades asthose at the sites of Keene, of Charlestown, New Hampshire (Number Four), Fort Shirley at the head ofDeerfield River (Heath), and Fort Pelham (Rowe); while Fort Massachusetts (Adams) guarded the Hoosacgateway to the Hoosatonic Valley These frontier garrisons and the self-defense of the backwoodsmen of NewEngland are well portrayed in the pages of Parkman.[72:2] At the close of the war, settlement again expandedinto the Berkshires, where Lennox, West Hoosac (Williamstown), and Pittsfield were established in themiddle of the century Checked by the fighting in the last French and Indian War, the frontier went forwardafter the Peace of Paris (1763) at an exceptional rate, especially into Vermont and interior New Hampshire

An anonymous writer gives a contemporary view of the situation on the eve of the Revolution:[72:3]

The richest parts remaining to be granted are on the northern branches of the Connecticut river, towardsCrown Point where are great districts of fertile soil still unsettled The North part of New Hampshire, theprovince of Maine, and the territory of Sagadahock have but few settlements in them compared with the tractsyet unsettled

I should further observe that these tracts have since the peace [i e., 1763], been settling pretty fast: farms on

the river Connecticut are every day extending beyond the old fort Dummer, for near thirty miles; and will in afew years reach to Kohasser which is nearly two hundred miles; not that such an extent will be one-tenthsettled, but the new-comers do not fix near their neighbors, and go on regularly, but take spots that pleasethem best, though twenty or thirty miles beyond any others This to people of a sociable disposition in Europewould appear very strange, but the Americans do not regard the near neighborhood of other farmers; twenty orthirty miles by water they esteem no distance in matters of this sort; besides in a country that promises wellthe intermediate space is not long in filling up Between Connecticut river and Lake Champlain upon OtterCreek, and all along Lake Sacrament [George] and the rivers that fall into it, and the whole length of Wood

Creek, are numerous settlements made since the peace.[73:1]

For nearly a hundred years, therefore, New England communities had been pushed out to new frontiers in theintervals between the almost continuous wars with the French and Indians Probably the most distinctivefeature in this frontier was the importance of the community type of settlement; in other words, of the towns,with their Puritan ideals in education, morals, and religion This has always been a matter of pride to thestatesmen and annalists of New England, as is illustrated by these words of Holland in his "Western

Massachusetts," commenting on the settlement of the Connecticut Valley in villages, whereby in his judgmentmorality, education, and urbanity were preserved:

The influence of this policy can only be fully appreciated when standing by the side of the solitary settler's hut

in the West, where even an Eastern man has degenerated to a boor in manners, where his children have grown

up uneducated, and where the Sabbath has become an unknown day, and religion and its obligations haveceased to exercise control upon the heart and life

Whatever may be the real value of the community type of settlement, its establishment in New England wasintimately connected both with the Congregational religious organization and with the land system of thecolonies of that section, under which the colonial governments made grants not in tracts to individuals, but intownships to groups of proprietors who in turn assigned lands to the inhabitants without cost The typical form

of establishing a town was as follows: On application of an approved body of men, desiring to establish a newsettlement, the colonial General Court would appoint a committee to view the desired land and report on itsfitness; an order for the grant would then issue, in varying areas, not far from the equivalent of six milessquare In the eighteenth century especially, it was common to reserve certain lots of the town for the support

of schools and the ministry This was the origin of that very important feature of Western society, federal landgrants for schools and colleges.[74:1] The General Courts also made regulations regarding the common lands,the terms for admitting inhabitants, etc., and thus kept a firm hand upon the social structure of the new

settlements as they formed on the frontier

This practice, seen in its purity in the seventeenth century especially, was markedly different from the

practices of other colonies in the settlement of their back lands For during most of the period New Englanddid not use her wild lands, or public domain, as a source of revenue by sale to individuals or to companies,with the reservation of quit-rents; nor attract individual settlers by "head rights," or fifty-acre grants, after theVirginia type; nor did the colonies of the New England group often make extensive grants to individuals, onthe ground of special services, or because of influence with the government, or on the theory that the granteewould introduce settlers on his grant They donated their lands to groups of men who became town proprietorsfor the purpose of establishing communities These proprietors were supposed to hold the lands in trust, to beassigned to inhabitants under restraints to ensure the persistence of Puritan ideals

During most of the seventeenth century the proprietors awarded lands to the new-comers in accordance withthis theory But as density of settlement increased, and lands grew scarce in the older towns, the proprietorsbegan to assert their legal right to the unoccupied lands and to refuse to share them with inhabitants who werenot of the body of proprietors The distinction resulted in class conflicts in the towns, especially in the

eighteenth century,[75:1] over the ownership and disposal of the common lands

The new settlements, by a process of natural selection, would afford opportunity to the least contented,

whether because of grievances, or ambitions, to establish themselves This tended to produce a Western flavor

in the towns on the frontier But it was not until the original ideals of the land system began to change, that theopportunity to make new settlements for such reasons became common As the economic and political idealreplaced the religious and social ideal, in the conditions under which new towns could be established, thisbecame more possible

Such a change was in progress in the latter part of the seventeenth century and during the eighteenth In 1713,

1715, and 1727, Massachusetts determined upon a policy of locating towns in advance of settlement, toprotect her boundary claims In 1736 she laid out five towns near the New Hampshire border, and a yearearlier opened four contiguous towns to connect her Housatonic and Connecticut Valley settlements.[76:1]Grants in non-adjacent regions were sometimes made to old towns, the proprietors of which sold them tothose who wished to move.

The history of the town of Litchfield illustrates the increasing importance of the economic factor At a timewhen Connecticut feared that Andros might dispose of the public lands to the disadvantage of the colony, the

legislature granted a large part of Western Connecticut to the towns of Hartford and Windsor, pro forma, as a

means of withdrawing the lands from his hands But these towns refused to give up the lands after the dangerhad passed, and proceeded to sell part of them.[76:2] Riots occurred when the colonial authorities attempted

to assert possession, and the matter was at length compromised in 1719 by allowing Litchfield to be settled inaccordance with the town grants, while the colony reserved the larger part of northwestern Connecticut In

1737 the colony disposed of its last unlocated lands by sale in lots In 1762 Massachusetts sold a group ofentire townships in the Berkshires to the highest bidders.[77:1]

But the most striking illustration of the tendency, is afforded by the "New Hampshire grants" of GovernorWentworth, who, chiefly in the years about 1760, made grants of a hundred and thirty towns west of theConnecticut, in what is now the State of Vermont, but which was then in dispute between New Hampshire andNew York These grants, while in form much like other town grants, were disposed of for cash, chiefly tospeculators who hastened to sell their rights to the throngs of land-seekers who, after the peace, began to pourinto the Green Mountain region

It is needless to point out how this would affect the movement of Western settlement in respect to

individualistic speculation in public lands; how it would open a career to the land jobbers, as well as to thenatural leaders in the competitive movement for acquiring the best lands, for laying out town sites and

building up new communities under "boom" conditions The migratory tendency of New Englanders wasincreased by this gradual change in its land policy; the attachment to a locality was diminished The lateryears showed increasing emphasis by New England upon individual success, greater respect for the self-mademan who, in the midst of opportunities under competitive conditions, achieved superiority The old

dominance of town settlement, village moral police, and traditional class control gave way slowly Settlement

in communities and rooted Puritan habits and ideals had enduring influences in the regions settled by NewEnglanders; but it was in this Old West, in the years just before the Revolution, that individualism began toplay an important rôle, along with the traditional habit of expanding in organized communities

The opening of the Vermont towns revealed more fully than before, the capability of New Englanders tobecome democratic pioneers, under characteristic frontier conditions Their economic life was simple andself-sufficing They readily adopted lynch law (the use of the "birch seal" is familiar to readers of Vermonthistory) to protect their land titles in the troubled times when these "Green Mountain Boys" resisted NewYork's assertion of authority They later became an independent Revolutionary state with frontier directness,and in very many respects their history in the Revolutionary epoch is similar to that of settlers in Kentuckyand Tennessee, both in assertion of the right to independent self government and in a frontier

separatism.[78:1] Vermont may be regarded as the culmination of the frontier movement which I have beendescribing in New England

By this time two distinct New Englands existed the one coastal, and dominated by commercial interests andthe established congregational churches; the other a primitive agricultural area, democratic in principle, andwith various sects increasingly indifferent to the fear of "innovation" which the dominant classes of the oldcommunities felt Already speculative land companies had begun New England settlements in the WyomingValley of Pennsylvania, as well as on the lower Mississippi; and New England missions among the Indians,such as that at Stockbridge, were beginning the noteworthy religious and educational expansion of the section

to the west

That this movement of expansion had been chiefly from south to north, along the river valleys, should notconceal from us the fact that it was in essential characteristics a Western movement, especially in the socialtraits that were developing Even the men who lived in the long line of settlements on the Maine coast, underfrontier conditions, and remote from the older centers of New England, developed traits and a democraticspirit that relate them closely to the Westerners, in spite of the fact that Maine is "down east" by

preëminence.[79:1]

The frontier of the Middle region in this period of the formation of the Old West, was divided into two parts,which happen to coincide with the colonies of New York and Pennsylvania In the latter colony the trend ofsettlement was into the Great Valley, and so on to the Southern uplands; while the advance of settlement inNew York was like that of New England, chiefly northward, following the line of Hudson River

The Hudson and the Mohawk constituted the area of the Old West in this part of the eighteenth century Withthem were associated the Wallkill, tributary to the Hudson, and Cherry Valley near the Mohawk, along thesources of the Susquehanna The Berkshires walled the Hudson in to the east; the Adirondacks and the

Catskills to the west Where the Mohawk Valley penetrated between the mountainous areas, the IroquoisIndians were too formidable for advance on such a slender line Nothing but dense settlement along thenarrow strip of the Hudson, if even that, could have furnished the necessary momentum for overcoming theIndian barrier; and this pressure was lacking, for the population was comparatively sparse in contrast with thetask to be performed What most needs discussion in the case of New York, therefore, is not the history ofexpansion as in other sections, but the absence of expansive power

The fur-trade had led the way up the Hudson, and made beginnings of settlements at strategic points near theconfluence of the Mohawk But the fur-trader was not followed by a tide of pioneers One of the most

important factors in restraining density of population in New York, in retarding the settlement of its frontier,and in determining the conditions there, was the land system of that colony

From the time of the patroon grants along the lower Hudson, great estates had been the common form of landtenure Rensselaerswyck reached at one time over seven hundred thousand acres These great patroon estateswere confirmed by the English governors, who in their turn followed a similar policy By 1732 two andone-half million acres were engrossed in manorial grants.[80:1] In 1764, Governor Colden wrote[80:2] thatthree of the extravagant grants contain,

as the proprietors claim, above a million acres each, several others above 200,000 * * * Although these grantscontain a great part of the province, they are made in trifling acknowledgements The far greater part of themstill remain uncultivated, without any benefit to the community, and are likewise a discouragement to thesettling and improving the lands in the neighborhood of them, for from the uncertainty of their boundaries, thepatentees of these great tracts are daily enlarging their pretensions, and by tedious and most expensive lawsuits, distress and ruin poor families who have taken out grants near them

He adds that "the proprietors of the great tracts are not only freed from the quit-rents, which the other

landholders in the province pay, but by their influence in the assembly are freed from every other public tax

on their lands."

In 1769 it was estimated that at least five-sixths of the inhabitants of Westchester County lived within thebounds of the great manors there.[81:1] In Albany County the Livingston manor spread over seven moderntownships, and the great Van Rensselaer manor stretched twenty-four by twenty-eight miles along the

Hudson; while still farther, on the Mohawk, were the vast possessions of Sir William Johnson.[81:2]

It was not simply that the grants were extensive, but that the policy of the proprietors favored the leasingrather than the sale of the lands frequently also of the stock, and taking payment in shares It followed thatsettlers preferred to go to frontiers where a more liberal land policy prevailed At one time it seemed possible

that the tide of German settlement, which finally sought Pennsylvania and the up-country of the South, mightflow into New York In 1710, Governor Hunter purchased a tract in Livingston's manor and located nearlyfifteen hundred Palatines on it to produce naval stores.[82:1] But the attempt soon failed; the Germans applied

to the Indians on Schoharie Creek, a branch of the Mohawk, for a grant of land and migrated there, only tofind that the governor had already granted the land Again were the villages broken up, some remaining andsome moving farther up the Mohawk, where they and accessions to their number established the frontiersettlements about Palatine Bridge, in the region where, in the Revolution, Herkimer led these German

frontiersmen to stem the British attack in the battle of Oriskany They constituted the most effective militarydefense of Mohawk Valley Still another portion took their way across to the waters of the Susquehanna, and

at Tulpehockon Creek began an important center of German settlement in the Great Valley of

Pennsylvania.[82:2]

The most important aspect of the history of the movement into the frontier of New York at this period,

therefore, was the evidence which it afforded that in the competition for settlement between colonies

possessing a vast area of vacant land, those which imposed feudal tenures and undemocratic restraints, andwhich exploited settlers, were certain to lose

The manorial practice gave a bad name to New York as a region for settlement, which not even the actualopportunities in certain parts of the colony could counteract The diplomacy of New York governors duringthis period of the Old West, in securing a protectorate over the Six Nations and a consequent claim to theirterritory, and in holding them aloof from France, constituted the most effective contribution of that colony tothe movement of American expansion When lands of these tribes were obtained after Sullivan's expedition inthe Revolution (in which New England soldiers played a prominent part), it was by the New England

inundation into this interior that they were colonized And it was under conditions like those prevailing in thelater years of the expansion of settlements in New England itself, that this settlement of interior and westernNew York was effected

The result was, that New York became divided into two distinct peoples: the dwellers along Hudson Valley,and the Yankee pioneers of the interior But the settlement of central and western New York, like the

settlement of Vermont, is a story that belongs to the era in which the trans-Alleghany West was occupied

We can best consider the settlement of the share of the Old West which is located in Pennsylvania as a part ofthe migration which occupied the Southern Uplands, and before entering upon this it will be advantageous tosurvey that part of the movement toward the interior which proceeded westward from the coast First let usobserve the conditions at the eastern edge of these uplands, along the fall line in Virginia, in the latter part ofthe seventeenth century, in order that the process and the significance of the movement may be better

understood

About the time of Bacon's Rebellion, in Virginia, strenuous efforts were made to protect the frontier linewhich ran along the falls of the river, against the attacks of Indians This "fall line," as the geographers call it,marking the head of navigation, and thus the boundary of the maritime or lowland South, runs from the site ofWashington, through Richmond, and on to Raleigh, North Carolina, and Columbia, South Carolina Virginiahaving earliest advanced thus far to the interior, found it necessary in the closing years of the seventeenthcentury to draw a military frontier along this line As early as 1675 a statute was enacted,[84:1] providing thatpaid troops of five hundred men should be drawn from the midland and most secure parts of the country andplaced on the "heads of the rivers" and other places fronting upon the Indians What was meant by the "heads

of the rivers," is shown by the fact that several of these forts were located either at the falls of the rivers or justabove tidewater, as follows: one on the lower Potomac in Stafford County; one near the falls of the

Rappahannock; one on the Mattapony; one on the Pamunky; one at the falls of the James (near the site ofRichmond); one near the falls of the Appomattox, and others on the Blackwater, the Nansemond, and theAccomac peninsula, all in the eastern part of Virginia

Again, in 1679, similar provision was made,[84:2] and an especially interesting act was passed, making quasi

manorial grants to Major Lawrence Smith and Captain William Byrd, "to seate certain lands at the head [falls]

of Rappahannock and James river" respectively This scheme failed for lack of approval by the authorities inEngland.[84:3] But Byrd at the falls of the James near the present site of Richmond, Robert Beverley on theRappahannock, and other frontier commanders on the York and Potomac, continued to undertake colonialdefense The system of mounted rangers was established in 1691, by which a lieutenant, eleven soldiers, andtwo Indians at the "heads" or falls of each great river were to scout for enemy,[85:1] and the Indian boundaryline was strictly defined

By the opening years of the eighteenth century (1701), the assembly of Virginia had reached the conclusionthat settlement would be the best means of protecting the frontiers, and that the best way of "settling in

co-habitations upon the said land frontiers within this government will be by encouragements to inducesocieties of men to undertake the same."[85:2] It was declared to be inexpedient to have less than twentyfighting men in each "society," and provision was made for a land grant to be given to these societies (ortowns) not less than 10,000 nor more than 30,000 acres upon any of the frontiers, to be held in common by thesociety The power of ordering and managing these lands, and the settling and planting of them, was to remain

in the society Virginia was to pay the cost of survey, also quit-rents for the first twenty years for the

two-hundred-acre tract as the site of the "co-habitation." Within this two hundred acres each member was tohave a half-acre lot for living upon, and a right to two hundred acres next adjacent, until the thirty thousandacres were taken up The members of the society were exempt from taxes for twenty years, and from therequirements of military duty except such as they imposed upon themselves The resemblance to the NewEngland town is obvious

"Provided alwayes," ran the quaint statute, "and it is the true intent and meaning of this act that for every fivehundred acres of land to be granted in pursuance of this act there shall be and shall be continually kept uponthe said land one christian man between sixteen and sixty years of age perfect of limb, able and fitt for servicewho shall alsoe be continually provided with a well fixed musquett or fuzee, a good pistoll, sharp simeter,tomahawk and five pounds of good clean pistoll powder and twenty pounds of sizable leaden bulletts or swan

or goose shott to be kept within the fort directed by this act besides the powder and shott for his necessary oruseful shooting at game Provided also that the said warlike christian man shall have his dwelling and

continual abode within the space of two hundred acres of land to be laid out in a geometricall square or asnear that figure as conveniency will admit," etc Within two years the society was required to cause a half acre

in the middle of the "co-habitation" to be palisaded "with good sound pallisadoes at least thirteen foot longand six inches diameter in the middle of the length thereof, and set double and at least three foot within theground."

Such in 1701 was the idea of the Virginia tidewater assembly of a frontiersman, and of the frontier towns bywhich the Old Dominion should spread her population into the upland South But the "warlike Christian man"who actually came to furnish the firing line for Virginia, was destined to be the Scotch-Irishman and theGerman with long rifle in place of "fuzee" and "simeter," and altogether too restless to have his continualabode within the space of two hundred acres Nevertheless there are points of resemblance between this idea

of societies settled about a fortified town and the later "stations" of Kentucky.[87:1]

By the beginning of the eighteenth century the engrossing of the lands of lowland Virginia had progressed sofar, the practice of holding large tracts of wasteland for reserves in the great plantations had become so

common, that the authorities of Virginia reported to the home government that the best lands were all takenup,[87:2] and settlers were passing into North Carolina seeking cheap lands near navigable rivers Attentionwas directed also to the Piedmont portions of Virginia, for by this time the Indians were conquered in thisregion It was now possible to acquire land by purchase[87:3] at five shillings sterling for fifty acres, as well

as by head-rights for importation or settlement, and land speculation soon turned to the new area

Already the Piedmont had been somewhat explored.[87:4] Even by the middle of the seventeenth century,