How To Make An Endless Frontier

Robert Clancy

[Reprinted from Land & Liberty, July-August 1990]

IN 1893 at the Columbian Exposition in Chicago, a young historian, Frederick Jackson Turner, delivered an address before the American Historical Society. It was entitled "The Significance of the Frontier in American History".

His thesis was that the frontier was the cutting edge of American civilization and determined its democracy, its individualism, its culture.

This process took place as settlers pushed westward into the expanse of the frontier where land could be obtained cheaply or even free.

At this same Columbian Exposition Henry George attended one of the earliest Single Tax conferences. It does not appear that George or Turner were aware of one another's presence there. George most likely did not know the 32-year-old history professor, but Turner knew about George and was influenced by his views on the importance of free land.

Turner's short essay (later expanded into a book) had a greater impact than any other single work on the interpretation of American history. Up to then, historians did not quite know what to make of the multi-faceted mosaic of "American history." Here was a clear and plausible unified theory.

Turner came at a time just as the frontier was closing. He was not the first or only one to notice this. Others were concerned about it - and not just Americans - Lord Bryce, for instance. But Turner put it all together. He had his critics but his thesis held its own.

Now the whole Turnerian hypothesis is being challenged. A historian, Patricia Nelson Limerick -- herself a westerner -- has written a book, The Legacy of Conquest: The Unbroken Past of the American West.*

Instead of heroic trail-blazing she sees an often sordid story of greed and conquest. She sees complexity rather than simplicity, a fragmented set of stories instead of an onward march, dependence on federal government rather than independence.

Ms Limerick complains that Turner has written from the "white male" point of view and did not give the plight of women and minorities due attention --Indians, blacks, Chinese, Mexicans.

Many other historians, in rebellion against Turner and in an exercise of "deconstruction" that is now in vogue, are also exhuming bad deeds of frontier times. But these are hardly new revelations. We knew about outlaws, feuds, gold rushes, Indian decimation and the plight of other minorities.

And, asks Ms Limerick, "what about land monopoly and land speculation?" What indeed! This certainly happened (and continues to happen) and it hastened the closing of the frontier. Jefferson thought there was enough land in America to provide settlement for hundreds of years. Instead the frontier was closed less than three-fourths of a century after his death.

But despite all that, an opportunity was offered by the expanse of the American frontier that was unique in history. It offered multitudes of immigrants and people from the east coast a safety-valve when they were hard pressed by economic conditions.

Ms. Limerick says it is America's "creation myth" that the availability of land attracted people and that a pioneer spirit moulded life on the frontier. But 19th century observers and participants saw it happen. Why deny, more than a century later, that it happened? By focusing on the particular mishaps and misdeeds, Ms. Limerick and the other deconstructionists do not see the forest for the trees.

The people who migrated west were ordinary people, warts and all, seeking a new life. Taking a perspective that is less myopic, the civilization built up was, in spite of everything, a phenomenal accomplishment.

As for what to do with a society after the frontier is gone, Turner thought the government would have to become more active and involved in making up to people the benefits previously offered by the frontier. Indeed, this has come about, what with the extensive welfare programs undertaken by the government.

Henry George had a better idea. Recreate frontier conditions by publicly collecting the rent of land through land value taxation. This would cause much good land to be disgorged by monopolists and speculators. Persons seeking land for homes, farms, businesses, would find it much easier to obtain.

A reform like this would not depend on the accidents of history .and geography, but on a knowledgeable and rational creation of a perpetual frontier.


* The Legacy of Conquest: the Unbroken Past of the American West, by Patricia Nelson Limerick. W.W. Norton & Co., New York and London, 1987.